The New Warriors
by Chibigreen
Summary: DISCONTINUED (AU) Most people would agree that becoming Suzaku Seishi because of a FY DVD box set would be extrememly strange. The Suzaku seishi reach Taikyoku-zan... but is Taiitsukun testing them or matchmaking them?
1. Meet the Suzaku Seishi

**Author's Note:** Hello!  This is my first published fan fiction of FanFiction.net, you know.  I've written others, but they weren't _that_ good.  Anyway, here you are with my first Fushigi Yuugi work.  And now, about the work…

Okay, only heterosexual pairings in this fic.  I decided against using shounen ai in my first fic, and this fic isn't _quite_ like anything written on FanFiction.net.  It's about a group of people (some who watch FY) that become Suzaku Seishi when a FY DVD box set is opened.  But it is NOT a self-insertion.  I decided to play around with at least one pairing that didn't exist in the show, so I made the girl-who-becomes Chiriko older than Chiriko and the guy-who-becomes-Chichiri younger than Chichiri.  They'll be a main couple in this fic.  So will the Suzaku no Miko and the guy-who-becomes-Tamahome as well as the guy-who-becomes-Nuriko and the girl-who-becomes-Hotohori.  You have been warned.

And I'm pretty sure that there is a significant plot in this fic.  I've written a few chapters ahead, and the plot is actually coming along well.  So, enjoy the fic.

Peace,

Chibigreenwizardmon****

**Warnings:** I don't need warnings for heterosexual pairings, right?  Whatever.  Still, I'm putting up a warning for bandit language.  Occasionally, it will get _strong_.  And by the way, spoilers for any particular part of the series (but probably not the OAVs) may occur at any time.  I don't _think_ there are any in this chapter, though.

**Disclaimer:**  I don't own FY or its characters.  There, I admitted it so don't sue me.  However, I kind of own the people-who-become-a-seishi, at least before they become a seishi if not afterwards.

~**The New Warriors: Meet the Suzaku Seishi**~

Outside it was a balmy day in Florida, somewhere near Cape Canaveral.  Inside, Tsunami and Hikaru sat watching the last episode of Fushigi Yuugi – for the twentieth time – on a soft blue couch.  They had received a special edition of the DVD box set that no one else they knew had received.  The box was actually a book, like "The Universe of the Four Gods".  The first few pages were in Chinese, just like the book Yui read in the movie, and then the next eight pages had a slot for a DVD in them.  It contained the first and second seasons.  Tsunami and Hikaru had identical smiles on their faces as Keisuke took up the narration.

Nothing else about them was identical.  Tsunami had thick and long brown hair that she always kept partly bound up in a ponytail and had gray-blue eyes.  She was sixteen, and she was always wearing green.  Usually she wore skirts.  Hikaru, on the other hand, was seventeen.  She had thick, messy red hair and brown eyes and was actually adopted.  Not that she minded, once she had found out.  As she said, "Well, if my real parents couldn't damn well take care of me, I'm glad I have parents that damn will.

The episode ended, and with a sigh Hikaru ejected the DVD out and put it back in the case.  She grinned at her sister with her canines showing and said, "That was good!  Now let's watch the last OVA, too!"  She flipped to it, and then she gasped.  Tsunami looked at her sister worriedly.

"What is it?"  Hikaru pointed to a page in book.  It had formerly been blank, but now it had writing on it in Chinese.  Hikaru handed the book to her sister, who was a whiz at all sorts of languages.  The book had always been in the traditional Chinese style; that is, it was flipped compared to an American book.  She read aloud to her clueless sister.  "'The story continued with two of the Suzaku Seishi, sixteen-year-old Tsunami and seventeen-year-old Hikaru, sitting in their living room.  As they read "The Universe of the Four Gods", they found out that their own story was about to unfold.  A story of trust, friendship, and overcoming dangers on the way to their ultimate goal…' What in the world?  Now it's putting down what we say!"

"'As Tsunami began to read the sutra again, she turned the page…'" Tsunami did have to turn the page, "'…and the powers of the Suzaku Seishi flared into life.'"  The book began to glow scarlet, and seven red glowing balls floated out of it.  Five shot off, but two floated in the air before Hikaru and Tsunami.

*******

Vidal meditated in the church.  He had thought about becoming a Roman Catholic priest, but the life was too restricting for him.  He was meditating over the fact that he had just found his girlfriend sleeping with his best friend.  He looked down at his trembling hands.  _I almost killed them, both of them._  He shook his head at the thought.  He had wanted to, right then, and maybe would've if his friend hadn't have had a dagger.  During the fight, his left cheek had been sliced open and then his friend knocked him out with the pommel.  They had stopped the bleeding and bandaged him, leaving him in his bed with the apartment deserted, and all of his girlfriend's things gone.  The knife had barely missed slashing his brown eyes, and his dark blue hair had had a bit of blood dried in it.  While meditating, he had mostly picked out the blood in the part of his hair that always stood up.

_I was being stupid.  I would have regretted it later even more than I do now._  As it was, he was having a hard time controlling his despair.  He had found his friend's dagger and a note saying that they weren't pressing charges for the assault.  Later, he had a hard time stopping himself from using the dagger to slit his wrists.  He laughed harshly at himself.  His sophomore year of college was now really a mess.  Then, out of nowhere, a red globe of light shot into him.  It was painful, but he didn't scream.  When it was over, he looked at himself.  "Too bad.  I'm still alive.  What _was_ that?"  He looked at himself, and though a hole in his worn out jeans he realized he had a glowing some type of symbol on his right knee.

*******

Rayna wiped sweat from her brow as she finished the last bit of sword practice with the real blade that had been passed down with her family from generations.  It was said that her ancestor had been one of the greatest samurai of Japan during the Meiji Restoration, and the blade, as well as the fighting techniques, had been passed down for generations.  _Not to mention I look like Hotohori while fighting._  She smiled at the thought of being like her favorite Mysterious Play character.  She hadn't seen much of the show, but she thought he was pretty cool.  "How did that bandit put it?" she asked herself.  "Ah, I remember: 'I don't care if you're a guy; you're just _so special_.'" She giggled and took off her training sweat suit.

She quickly fixed her black hair and wiped the sweat from around her chocolate eyes.  For an eighteen-year-old just out of a hard training session, she knew she looked pretty good.  Too bad she didn't show her Japanese heritage that much.  She thought it might improve her looks.  _Of course, I always look good._ As she looked around her large, mirror-filled practice hall and admired her graceful, filled-out figure, she noticed a red light come in through a mirror.  It investigated all her reflections and then stopped in front of her.  Then it shot into her, and she screamed in agony.  It ended, and she looked at the mirror to see what hurt so badly.  All she could see was a red mark glowing on her neck.  At a closer look, she saw it was Hotohori's symbol.  She thought it was _hoshi_ or "star", but she wasn't sure.  She also noticed that the sword in her hand was glowing red.  She sat down as her knees collapsed in shock.

*******

Ira watched the film on old-style medieval herb healing with great interest.  Part of the reason he watched was a class on the history of medicine earned him credits for his degree, but he also enjoyed the film.  He shook his head in wonder that a community college even had such a course, but he was twenty-one and taking his third year of college here.  Next year he planned to attend one of the larger universities.

He had studied medicine hard, part of his reason being to help people like his mother, who had leukemia and only a year or so to live.  He remembered the last time he had visited her and she had weakly ruffled his short black hair.  She had had blonde hair before the chemotherapy had made it fall out.  Still, her blue eyes were just like his.  "Don't worry about me, son," she had said.  "Finish your studies, and be happy."  Thinking about it made him get depressed, and he stopped the tape.  Just then, a red ball of light entered through the ceiling and hit him full force.  He began to sweat at the pain and it stopped.  He felt slight warmth on left palm, and when he looked a red mark was glowing on it.  His brown-and-white cat Tama looked at his hand from under a chair and meowed.

*******

Tahir sat back under the moon on the beach.  He was fishing under the stars, a great hobby of his.  As he watched the sky, there seemed to be a red shooting star.  It then floated towards him, and he fell out of his chair, freaked out by the strange thing.  The next thing he knew, it went inside him with a nice bit of pain.  He winced and sat back on his chair.  Through his open shirt, he saw a Chinese or Japanese symbol on his chest; he rather thought it was Chinese.  Before he could freeze in shock, he noticed that his line was being pulled on hard.  He tried reeling whatever it was in.  It didn't seem so hard.

He caught peek of what he was reeling in when he was knee-deep in the ocean and a wave almost swamped him.  A shark was on the end of his line, and in surprise he dropped his rod.  The shark bit into that, too.  "Hey, that's my best rod!"  Unthinking, he grabbed the rod and pulled.  He ended up with the rod in his hands, but he was holding it at neck level with the shark still at the end.  It seemed light as a feather.  He tried to push the shark off his rod, and it flew backwards and splashed near the horizon line.  He went back to his chair and collapsed into it, holding his ruined favorite rod and not knowing whether to laugh in relief, sit in shock, or cry over his poor rod that his late older brother had given him.  He pushed his long purple hair out of his black eyes and began to laugh and cry.

*******

Lee shook his longer-than-usual deep aqua blue hair out of his eyes.  He also cleared the tears of frustration out of his blue eyes.  All of the practice he had been getting, and still that idiot of an s.o.b. had beaten him in a fight.  "That… jerk!"  He went through the tape of the fight and couldn't see where he had gone wrong.  Finally he flipped off the tape.  "This sucks!  I would have gotten award money to help my family!"  His little sister came in and looked at him with worry.  She was almost too thin for a girl her age.

"Big brother, what's wrong?"

Immediately he hid his tears and smile brightly at her.  He picked her up and swung her around.  "Oh, nothing, Rei.  Your big brother's just being himself."  He set her down and ruffled her soft black hair.  "Now, why don't you go to bed?  It's getting late."  Rei smiled happily and left the room.  That was when a red ball of light came in and went into his face.  He gritted his teeth so that he wouldn't yell, and the pain faded.  He turned around and saw his face reflected on the TV.  On his forehead, a big red mark was there, just like that guy Tamahome in his ex-girlfriend's video.  "Huh?  This is strange…"

*******

The balls shot into their bodies, making them yell in pain and begin to glow red.  When the light died down, Tasuki's symbol, _tsubasa_ or "wing", was glowing on Hikaru's left arm.  Tsunami looked down at her right foot and saw Chiriko's symbol, _hari_ or "to paste up", shining from there.  "What the fuck!  I'm Tasuki?"  She thought about it.  "Fuckin' shit!  Isn't Tasuki a guy?!"

"And I'm Chiriko."  They looked at each other in confusion.  "What is going on?"

*******

On the beach in the town, a bright red light glowed.  A confused girl with very dark red hair and black eyes in ancient-style Chinese clothing stumbled on the sand.  She looked around in surprise and with a sense of being lost.  Then a gang of rough-looking people came down, partying.  They seemed drunk and high on some type of drug.  One spotted her and pointed her out in a language and said something very rude and about something she definitely did not want to experience.  They came towards her with cruel looks on their faces.

~**TBC**~

**Author's Note #2:** *sob* It's so sad; Chichiri (Vidal) is so depressed for a while.  *cries*  And if you didn't really like this, this is pretty much a prologue.  It should really quicken up.  Anyways, what's your opinion on my first fic?  Review and tell me, please (and try to not flame me).


	2. The Gathering Begins

Warnings: Strong language, mild violence.  There's a spoiler for a certain Nuriko episode (ep. 33, I think) at the end of this chapter. 

**Disclaimer:** I still do not own FY.  It would be rather nice if I did, but I don't.

**A/N:** Thoughts are in _italics_ without quotation marks.

~**The Seven Stars: The Gathering Begins**~

Tsunami looked around her town from the roof of her two-story house.  Hikaru was right by her side.  They had a flashlight and were still reading the book.  "'One by one, the Seven Stars had their powers activated.  Their names were Hikaru, Vidal, Rayna, Ira, Tsunami, Tahir, and Lee.  Then their priestess appeared on a beach that was a partying area for drunk and drugged ruffians, and a gang of the ruffians began to chase her with evil intent.'"

"I think I know which beach that is!  Let's grab our bicycles and rescue our _miko_!  Even if this is damned strange, we can't let someone get hurt, 'specially not that fuckin' way."

"Sis, watch your language!" Tsunami called as they slid down the roof into a tree and climbed down.  Then Hikaru unlocked their shiny red bikes, and were heading down the beach.

*******

Tahir's head shot up and he stopped crying when he heard the cry for help.  It seemed like a stupid tourist had wandered into the wrong beach.  He knew a gang down the beach had very rowdy parties.  The last time they had a party while he was here on the beach, they had beaten up both him and his brother.  The gang had been arrested, of course, but apparently the gang had recently been released from jail.

His rage and symbol blazed in sync, and he ran down the beach and spotted the girl just as the gang surrounded her.  "Stop it right now!" he shouted, and ran towards them.  They turned when they heard him, and one had the girl in a painful hold.

The drunken and high leader sneered.  "What're you gonna do about it, fisher-boy?  Get us _arrested_ again?" he asked mockingly.  "If ya ever try to pull that, we'll kill ya.  Or maybe we'll just kill you now?"

"Right, boss!" shouted one of the drunken men.

"Yeah, we should kill 'em!" said another intoxicated gang member.  They all reeked of alcohol.

"Shut up!" he shouted.  His symbol blazed, and he saw the girl start with… recognition?  _No time to think, not now._  He quickly punched the leader.  He flew and knocked down four of his friends.  They didn't get up.  The one holding the girl tried to drag her away.  While the most of the gang ran away, Tahir quickly punched the guy holding the girl in the face.  The guy was knocked out, and Tahir helped the girl up.  She seemed a bit startled, as if she recognized him, but he was sure that he'd never seen her.

"You don't have to worry now, miss," he said, noticing that she looked around three years younger that he was, which meant that she was about fifteen.  "I'm sure they won't come back, and _I_ wouldn't do anything."  Suddenly he watched as two beach bikes bounced over the wooden stairs overlooking the dunes and landed on the beach.  One skidded to a halt, throwing up sand, while the other peacefully came to a stop.  The girl that peacefully stopped got off her bike and put down the kickstand.  Then she walked towards them, carrying the book and reading it with a flashlight.

"Hey, Hikaru," she called to the other girl on the bike, "I think we just found her and a Seishi.  It says in "The Universe of the Four Gods" that 'The Seishi Hikaru and Tsunami approached their _miko_ and the third Seishi to be found, Tahir, or Nuriko, of the _yanagi_.'"

"That's great!" exclaimed Hikaru.  "That is just so great!  In the _anime_, Nuriko was such a cool character.  Though he was gay."  Tahir choked, and Tsunami gave him a strange look.  Her eyes went wide, and she covered a giggle so that no one else would notice.  Then she walked over to the girl.

"Suzaku no Miko," she said, bowing formally to the priestess.  "I am Tsunami, also called Chiriko of the Suzaku Seven."  She gestured to Hikaru.  "And my rather foul-mouthed sister here is Hikaru, or Tasuki of the Suzaku Seven."  Then she smiled at the priestess.  "It is nice to meet you.  We got here as soon I as read that the priestess was being attacked in my book, "The Universe of the Four Gods".  What is your name?"

The girl had an adverse reaction.  "What?  Me?  I'm the priestess of Suzaku?"  She looked around.  "But where are we?  This isn't my world."

Hikaru joined them after examining the druggies.  "Heh.  They'll live, too bad for us.  Anyways, Miss Priestess, what my too-smart-for-her-own-good sister didn't say is that we're a bit overwhelmed, too.  Our symbols only first appeared a couple of hours ago, and we're a bit shaken even though we knew the legend of the Four Gods.  So you're not alone in your confusion, okay?"

Tsunami softly applauded.  "Wow, a speech, at least for you, without any cursing or any variety of foul language.  It's an accomplishment to be cheered.  But these uncouth addicts are beginning to stir.  Perhaps we should remove ourselves from this vicinity."  Everyone looked at her and sweatdropped.

"Say it like a real human, sis.  She's sayin' that these druggies are gonna wake up and might try somethin' that they'll regret later.  She also said it'd be a damn good idea for us to leave before we have to fight."  They both shot a look at Tahir and the priestess.  "Both of you should come," they said at once.  Tahir nodded, and the priestess took a step and dropped with a whimper of pain.

Tahir caught her before she hit the ground. "Sorry," she said, "I think I sprained my ankle."  Tsunami and Hikaru thought it over quickly.

"Nuriko, Tahir, whoever.  Well, you're supposed to be strong; why don't you carry her to our house?  It's not that far away."

"Yes, we'll carry our bikes.  Shall we go?"  Tahir nodded and picked the priestess up.

She blushed invisibly in the dark.  "By the way, my name is Kotori," she said to them all.  They began to discuss what was happening between them as the walked home.  Someone hiding under the stairs leading to the beach watched and listened to the people.  A blue symbol glowed.

*******

"Well, that sums it up," said Hikaru.  It was around one o' clock in the morning, and everyone was exhausted.  "That's what we know, and that's looking at the book.  The next pages are blank, so I guess that nothing important is happening to the main characters – that is, us – yet."  Hikaru felt to tired to even curse.

Tahir stood up.  "So you're saying that there's probably these bad Seiryuu guys around that we should watch out for?  And two other groups...?"

"The Genbu Seishi and the Byakko Seishi.  They will probably be our allies once we earn their trust," explained Tsunami.

"Well, I'll think about it in the morning.  I need to get going now."

"Okay, but just one second."  Tsunami took out a piece of paper with a picture of two bracelets on them.  "These are things owned by Nuriko.  They probably don't exist, but on the chance that you see them, get them.  These will help you."

"Nuriko's bracelets!" exclaimed Hikaru.  "Great idea."

"And we need your address and phone number.  Here is ours."  She wrote it down on the paper she had given Tahir.  He tore off a piece of the paper and wrote his down before leaving.

Now Hikaru, Tsunami, and Kotori were left alone on the fenced in pool patio behind the house.  Hikaru opened the patio door, saying, "Ya don't have to worry about anything.  Our parents are gone for a week, and ya can stay 'ere, no problem.  We'll help you to a room."  With both of them helping, she was able to get up the stairs and into the master bedroom.  "Ya can stay 'ere, for now."

Kotori nodded to them.  "My thanks, Chiriko, Tasuki."

"Aw, don't call us that, Kotori.  We've been Hikaru and Tsunami for most of our lives, and that's more like us than those other names, you know?  We'd prefer our real names to our warrior names."

"Okay then, Hikaru, Tsunami."  Just then Tsunami popped back in with a few large shirts.

"Here, Kotori, you can use these for pajamas.  I'm sure it will work better than that Chinese outfit."  She nodded, and they left her to prepare herself for bed.

*******

That night, Tahir slept very fretfully.  In his dream, he was in an area that was an eternal world of red.  It was a softly glowing red, just like his symbol.  Then a man with long purple hair tied back into a ponytail, and he looked almost like a girl.  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was thinking: _He's cute_.  He tried to wipe that thought out of his mind, but he just couldn't.  Instead, he greeted the person.  "Hello.  Who are you?"

The man smiled.  "Don't you know?  I'm you."

His jaw dropped.  "What?"  He thought about it.  "I'm not _that_ good-looking."

"I'm Nuriko."  Suddenly the dream vanished, and instead he was on a snow-capped mountain.  He couldn't control his thoughts or his body.

_I have to move this rock.  For Miaka, I will do it._  He went to a large rock blocking two doors and struggled to lift it.  _I have to do this!_  Finally, it moved and he set it down out of the way.  Then he collapsed as he heard some cried, "Nuriko!  Nuriko!"  His last thought was: _Miaka_.

~**TBC**~

**Author's Note:** Uh-oh!  Thanks to a comment by Sansele, I figured out that I had forgotten to take off the "do not accept anonymous reviews" thingy on the settings page… Now that's fixed, so if you wanted to review before, but couldn't, now you can.  I wonder how many reviews I'll get?  I'm aiming for three or so before I post the next chapter.  At least, if you want to see the next chapter sooner, you should review.  I'll be posting it – _eventually_ – anyways.  And now back to your regularly scheduled author's note…

Aw, the poor previously normal characters are going through so much… *cries* It makes me so happy to write these stories! *laughs evilly*  And by the way, Tahir thought Nuriko was cute because they do look a bit different… Tahir's a bit more masculine than Nuriko looked.  You might say that Tahir is Nuriko's personality as Ryuuen instead of as Ryuuen pretending to be Kourin.

So, how do you like the story so far?


	3. To Die or Not

**Warnings:**  Okay… In this chapter we have an _attempted_ suicide, use of rude and coarse language (bad Hikaru!), and some violence, some of it comical violence.

**Disclaimer:** If I was the Suzaku no Miko, one of my wishes would have been to own FY, because I don't, you know?

~**A Choice at a Church: To Die or Not**~

Vidal meditated at the church all night.  Though the appearance of that symbol had startled him, it had disappeared and he had dismissed it as a hallucination from his stressed out brain.  The morning came, and he still meditated.  He didn't want to live, really.  Trying to kill the two people that he cared about most… he hadn't known he had such an uncontrollable feeling inside of him.

He was worried that someday he would lose control again and this time, he would kill someone.  He brought out his best friend's knife and contemplated it.  Finally he made his decision.  He brought the knife up and was ready to cut his wrist.  Life didn't seem to care about him right now.  Just as he was about to cut, a strong arm grabbed his hand and lifted the knife away.

*******

When he woke up, Tahir had decided to go to church and pray a bit.  Normally, he wasn't very religious, but right now he wanted to go someplace where he could relax.  He knew a good church nearby that should be empty at this time of day, but on second thought he brought his cell phone and the numbers of the other two Suzaku Seishi.  He enjoyed the walk through the mostly quiet morning, and then he arrived at the church.

To his surprise he saw someone in the church.  It was a kid he recognized from school, Vidal or something like that.  Rumors had told he was about to propose to his girlfriend, but that was about all Tahir knew about him.  He sat down in the front row and watched the guy kneel in front of the altar and pray.  Suddenly, the guy brought a knife out and moved it towards his wrist.  Tahir shot up from his seat and grabbed the guy's arm and then pried the knife out of his hand.  "You really probably shouldn't kill yourself.  It's a very desperate thing to do."

The guy stared at him blankly, and then tried to grab back the knife.  "Let me end this!  You wouldn't understand!"

"Look, I just had the most confusing, strange night I've ever had!  I'm not in a mood to argue over if you kill yourself or not!"  Swiftly, he grabbed part of the blade where it was dull and broke the blade off of the hilt.  _Man, this super strength is coming in handy._  Vidal just stared at him in shock as Tahir handed him back the bladeless dagger.

Vidal had never seen anyone who could do that so _easily_.  "How… how did you do that?"

"It's just me.  Heh, you sure are weird, trying to kill yourself in a church.  I didn't think people were that religious."

Vidal was hit by a sudden memory that he'd never had before.  _He was sitting at a table with the strange guy that had just snapped his blade, but this time in Chinese clothing._

_"You sure are weird," said the guy, who looked like a girl._

_"Well, I can be weird and you can be gay no da."  The guy's name was… Nuriko?_

"Nuriko?" he asked out of nowhere.  His symbol on his knee glowed into life.  The guy whom he had called Nuriko stared at him in shock, and then took out a cell phone and dialed it.

"Hello, Hikaru, this is Tahir.  Yeah, well you know how you told me to look out for other Suzaku Seishi?  Well, I think I found one…  He has a symbol on his knee….  Yeah, it looks a bit like a number sign…  So, he's Chichiri?  And his symbol is "well"?  …Okay, but there's a problem.  He seems depressed and just tried to kill himself…  _Yes_, I stopped him. Duh.  So, should I bring him by?  The church isn't that far away from your house…  Meet at the beach instead?  Sounds good.  Just get Kotori into normal clothes, okay?  See you there in ten minutes."  He turned off his phone.

Vidal stared at him.  "What's all this about?"

"My friends will explain, I suppose.  By the way, why did you call me Nuriko?"

"I don't know.  The name just popped out of my mouth."  He saw the guy walking away.

"I'm not surprised."  Tahir looked back and called to Vidal, "Hey, are you coming?  You might find this rather interesting."

Vidal hesitated, but then he followed the mysterious stranger out of the church. 

*******

Tsunami, Hikaru, and Kotori were waiting at the beach when Vidal and Tahir showed up.  The formal seemed confused; the latter was serious.  They were silent when they reached the girls.  Tahir introduced them.  "Vidal, this is Tsunami, Hikaru, and Kotori."

Tsunami nodded at Vidal.  "Hello, Vidal, or Chichiri.  I heard you tried to kill yourself."  She looked at his slash on the cheek that had a new-looking scab on it.  "You're lucky that Tahir came along, then.  You know, one Chichiri had a scar over his eyes that he got killing his fiancé and his best friend."  Vidal started in surprise, and Tsunami looked at him to explain why he had looked so startled.  He didn't, so she shrugged and continued.  "Anyway, that's not important.  What is important is what you are now, or what you have been from the time last night when your symbol appeared."  Tsunami, Hikaru, and even Tahir helped explain the strange events.

When they finished, Vidal looked at Kotori.  "And how do you feel about this?  How do you feel about being the one to summon a god, especially if you know you might die?"

Kotori smiled.  "Well, I will try my best to live.  You see, I know at least one wish to make.  Recently, rebels from Kutou have begun invading Konan again."  A stubborn look crossed her face.  "I _will_ save my empire, no matter what."  She sweat-dropped.  "There's only one thing I'm worried about."

"What is it?" Hikaru asked curiously.

"Well, the ceremony either has to use both Shinzahos or use the scroll of "The Universe of the Four Gods", right?  How do we summon Suzaku in this world?"

Vidal was having a hard time believing in any of this.  The strain of so much happening in his life so quickly made him feel helpless and slightly panicked.  "This cannot be real!" he cried.  "It… it's not possible!  I don't believe in this!"  He ran away from and back towards the distant church across the sands. When Tahir made as if to go after him, Kotori stopped him by placing a hand lightly on his shoulder.

"Let him go.  I'm really confused by being in a new world; perhaps he is confused about all these events."  Tahir stopped and sat down on the sand.

"I think you're right.  I'm confused too.  I mean, I dreamt I met this person named Nuriko, and then I dreamt I was dying on a mountain.  I lifted this huge boulder, and then I lost consciousness."  Tsunami and Hikaru looked sad.  After watching the series so many times, they knew exactly what he was talking about.

"That was when Nuriko died, after fighting and killing the werewolf Ashitare," explained Hikaru.  "Me, in my dream I met Tasuki.  He told me to look for my tessen, my diamond fan, and then I dreamt of the time Chiriko died."

"I also dreamt of Chiriko and the time he died," Tsunami said with tears in her eyes.  "God, he was so brave.  It hurt so much."  A tear dropped down her face.  "Poor Chiriko…"

"Yeah, well… Nuriko was so cute," said Tahir without thinking about what he was saying.  Everyone stared at him with a sweat drop as he blushed.

Hikaru said what all three were thinking, but in a more agitating way than the other two could have put it.  "You're… gay?  And you thought _Nuriko_ was cute?"  Then she burst out laughing.  "Well, he is carrying on Nuriko's tradition!  He wants to screw guys more than girls!   Ahahahaha!"  She went on laughing until Tahir punched her towards the water.  She flew back and landed in the shallows.  "Ah!  Water!  Help!  I can't swim!"  That was when she realized she was knee deep, and got up embarrassed and blushing deeply.

Tahir was leaning back and looking content.  "Not bad for a gay guy, right Hikaru?" he asked sweetly as she wiped salt water and sand from her face.  She glared at him as she walked back, and when she didn't look where she was going she stumbled over a rut in the ground.  She fell hard, and in front of her face she watched a shiny object appear in a red light.

"My tessen!" she crowed happily, and then gave an evil grin to Tahir.  "Dodge this!"  She spread the fan wide and swept it towards him.  "Rekka Shinen!"  A flame shot from the fan to Tahir and engulfed him.  "Extra crispy gay guy," she said happily as she looked at Tahir.

"Why you…!" he shot up and chased her around the beach.  She bounded away from him, laughing.  "Nyah nyah!  You're not fast enough!"  He chased her until he was exhausted and just sat down on the beach, breathing hard.  Tsunami looked at them and began to laugh at both of them.

"Both of you are so comical!"  She received a glare from both of them.  "Never mind.  I'll just read the book again."  She opened it to the current page where writing was appearing.  "'Three of the Suzaku Warriors relaxed on the beach while the other Seishi went through their own problems.  The one known as Lee faced off a gang whom had tried to mug him, and even he was not sure if he could fight off the gang and protect his little sister, who had been with him, at the same time.'"  She exchanged startled looks with Kotori.

Then she called out, "Excuse me, but another of the Suzaku Seven is in a rough spot right now.  Shall we go to help them out?"  Hikaru and Tahir paused in their fight to look curiously at Tsunami and Kotori.

"Someone's in trouble?" asked Tahir, who had his fist a few inches away from Hikaru's head.  Tsunami nodded and continued reading on what was currently happening.

"Then we should go help," said Tahir as he pulled his fist away from its ready-to-strike position.

"Where do we need to go, sis?"

"It's happening at the high school – you know, the open air cafeteria.  It's right up that street!"  She pointed away from the beach, and Hikaru and Tahir ran ahead while Tsunami helped Kotori, who was hobbling along with her crutches as quickly as she could.

Hikaru led the way to the stone high school, and she noticed the metal gate that had been broken into.  The school had open hallways, except for the roof over them.  She led Tahir through the passages, and they came to a bad scene.  A rough-looking gang was holding a little girl hostage, and a man wearing fighting clothes faced them all off.  There were more than fifty gangsters in all. That was a lot more than any of them had anticipated.

Lee wasn't attacking right now because he did not want to hurt his little sister.  Tahir muttered something to Hikaru, and she nodded.  She couldn't use the tessen because of the wood around them, but it was still a sharp, hard weapon.

Tahir made the first move by punching two fighters in the head.  They landed, slumped, against the wall.  Hikaru jumped over him and caught the next fighter by surprise and knocked him out with her fan.  That is when Tsunami and Kotori ran in.  Tsunami did not know how to fight, so she and Kotori hung back.  Then some of the gang advanced on them.

Tsunami knew she had to protect Kotori, so she grabber one of Kotori's crutches and used it to fend off some of the gang.  She really did not know how to fight well, but she realized that wooden crutches could still cause quite a bit of pain as she whacked one of the gang members on the head with it.  Yet they were being backed into a corner, and some were pulling weapons out.  A rusted metal pipe broke Tsunami's crutch in two.

Tsunami looked desperately around.  Hikaru was busy fighting, and Tahir was protecting the little girl, whom he had rescued.  Lee was fighting the gang members to get towards his sister.  It seemed like she was on her own.

Hikaru was fighting off some of them when she noticed that her sister was in trouble, and she began to fight t get towards there as quickly as she could.  When she noticed another group of gangsters were circling around to get towards Kotori, her protectiveness of people she cared about flared and made the symbol on her left arm burn into life again.  She began to run and dodge blows more quickly than she thought she possibly could.

When a guy pulled a knife out and rushed towards Tsunami with it, he suddenly found himself unconscious by a swift blow to the head by Hikaru's metal fan.  Then she grabbed half of the broken crutch and rushed towards the gangsters surrounding Kotori.  She knocked out one after another, but for some reason they kept on getting back up and fighting on as soon as they regained consciousness.

From the other side of the cafeteria, Tahir vented his frustration as he fought side-by-side with Lee.  "I don't get it!  What's wrong with these people?"

"I don' know!" Hikaru shouted back.  "I mean, it's like they're zombies or somethin'!  They just won't give up!  And they're not talkin', either.  It's fuckin' creepy!"

Tsunami began to think as she fought off gangsters with the half of a crutch she had left in her possession.  This reminded her of something, but she wasn't sure what.  She knew she almost had the answer, almost… She looked into the eyes of a girl gangster she was fighting, and she noted that the eyes did look dead and lifeless, just as Hikaru had mentioned.  When saw Hikaru's tessen, it reminded her of the time in the show where Tasuki had used it to burn zombies to a crisp.  The zombies…

_Now I remember!  These people… they have the same eyes as the possessed villagers in the show!_

Tsunami shouted to Tahir and Hikaru, "I think they have been possessed by a demon!"  Then she knocked out the girl she was fighting.

Hikaru, Tahir, and Lee all paused for a moment in surprise before they continued fighting.  "Yo!  What do ya mean by dat?" Hikaru shouted as she ducked under the swing of a metal chain.

Tsunami cracked her crutch against the cranium of another enemy.  "I thought about the episode of Fushigi Yuugi where the villagers had been possessed by that sickness demon!  It seems to be the same in this case."

The fight continued until even Lee was breathing hard.  His symbol was dimming as he used all of his strength to fight.  But the gangsters kept on coming, and Tsunami had the suspicion that more people were being possessed and pulled into the fight when some people didn't regain consciousness, but people kept on coming.  The exits had been blocked off by large groups of people long ago, but occasionally a person would leave the group in the doorway and join the fight.

Tired, Tsunami did not notice the metal pipe coming for her until it was too late.  It smashed into her stomach, and she flew back into Kotori, knocking them both down.  Hikaru had been pulled away from them by the flow of the fight, and now more possessed people blocked Hikaru from coming to the rescue as others held down Kotori and Tsunami.

Two people were let through a nearby doorway, each one of them carrying a gun.  One pointed the gun towards Tsunami's head, and the other was pointed towards Kotori.  Tsunami did not close her eyes.  She was determined not to cringe away from her death.

~**TBC**~

**Author's Note:** A cliffhanger!  Cool!  I'm evil when I'm chibi, and I'm chibi a lot because I'm Chibigreenwizardmon!  AHAHAHAHAHA!  *sweat drops as she realizes what she just sounded like*  Ahem.  I knew I shouldn't of drank all that soda…

Okay, I know I make Tahir seem only homosexual, but don't worry.  He's still gonna fall in love with a girl; that's why this isn't a shounen ai fic.  BUT… I decided to ask the readers' opinions on this one.  Which would you like: Tahir + Rayna (Hotohori) or Tahir + Hikaru?  Tell me in a review, please.

And another note… chapters will be coming out more slowly because I'm revising this.  I think that my main pairing's romance is too rushed, so I'm changing the plot a bit and changing what happens by a huge amount!  Eh, this is a bit of a pain, but it's fun, too.  And thanks to a comment by CLAMPraven about Tahir's feelings towards Kotori (Nuriko's feelings for Miaka), I have the greatest idea for a plot twist.

And I know Vidal is a bit OOC right now (for Chichiri).  Heck, they're all OOC.  I mean, some of them aren't even the same _gender_.  But, it is because of changes (like the latter) that they are OOC.  I mean, Vidal's depressed, but that's a bit understandable because his fiancée just cheated on him with his best friend and… Well, if I was him, I'd be depressed, too.  Don't worry!  He won't be depressed for too much longer, you know.

And maybe I will go for a Hikaru + Vidal pairing instead of a Tsunami + Vidal, which is what I was planning.  Who knows?  By the way, your opinion counts, so reviews are appreciated.  And if I made any grammatical errors in this, I would like to know.  I didn't have this beta read.


	4. Never Lose Hope

**Author's Note: **Wai! I'm so happy that I have a total of 11 reviews (at this point)!  You see, I didn't have time to write over spring break (no access to a computer, you know) and I was starting to wonder if people actually wanted to read my story.  (Yep, self-doubt all the way.)  I come back and check, and I have eleven reviews!!!  Cool!  I almost felt like crying with happiness (but I'm not _that_ obsessed with my fic).

Dream sequences are now denoted with \\  \\.

**Warning:** Some more violence and cursing.

**Disclaimer: **Through writing my first fanfiction that I'm putting on-line, I'm realizing how annoying these are.  I just don't own it.

~**Facing Death: Never Lose Hope**~

Tsunami looked straight up at the gun pointing towards her head.  The demon-possessed gangsters and innocent civilians were about to kill Kotori and herself.  She stared up into the gun, looking straight towards what was, in all probability, going to be the source of her demise.  Then she glanced over to her left, where a struggling Kotori was also being held down.

_I need to help her!  But how can I?_

As Tsunami thought that, she watched the trigger on the gun being pulled.  Time seemed to slow, and the motion that would lead to her demise seemed to take an eternity.  The hand moved to pull the trigger, and…

***Minutes Earlier***

Vidal was again kneeling in prayer in front of the white altar in the small church.  The light of the sun poured into the cool church through the many-colored stained glass windows.  The carpet was beginning to feel uncomfortable under his knees, but it did not keep him from dozing off after the long night.

He usually did not have memorable dreams, but this one was quite unusual.

\\There was a man, perhaps a few years older than him, sitting to the right of the altar in the church.  He had a strange staff, a blue robe with circular patterns on it, and a fishing hat.  His face was somehow strange, and it didn't look quite real.  It seemed to be always smiling.

And if Vidal hadn't known that he was not the guy, he would have thought that he was.  The other man looked almost exactly like Vidal, except for his face.  On closer inspection, he noticed that the man's hair was also a few shades lighter than his own.

"Who are you?" he asked calmly.  He knew that it could not be himself.

"I'm you no da," was the only reply.  It came in a voice much higher than Vidal's own.

Vidal's eyes widened in surprise and disbelief.  "But… How?"

The man on the bench smiled and reached towards his face.  He pulled away a mask; it was the mask that had been making his face look abnormal.  He spoke, now in a voice that matched Vidal's.  "I'm Chichiri of the Suzaku Seishi."  Vidal tried to protest that he didn't believe in what those strange people had told him, but Chichiri continued before he could voice his thoughts.  "I know that you do not believe it is real – but you should trust them.  You are also Chichiri of the Suzaku Seishi, destined to protect your priestess with your life during her quest to summon Suzaku.  Your power is magic, which I will teach you through dreams as your quest continues."

Vidal was looking at the large scar that crossed Chichiri's eye.  "How did you get that?"  Then he winced inwardly, realizing that the question was very tactless.

Chichiri reached up to touch where the scar ended on his right cheek.  "I acted before I thought, and the two most important people in my life died because of my actions."

Understanding dawned over Vidal.  "That almost happened to me too."  He touched the red scab that crossed his left cheek and closed his eyes.  "But the people are still alive, thank God."  He lifted his eyes to meet Chichiri's, and in that moment he knew that all he had been told was true.  His religion might state that there was only one God, but now he knew for a fact the existence of another.  "I guess… I guess it is time to do my duty."

Chichiri smiled again and nodded.  With one swift movement, he put on his mask and stood up.  "Be sure to take good care of the priestess and your fellow warriors no da!  I'll leave my shakujo, kesa, and kasa here to help you out."  He gestured to his staff, cloak, and hat.  "Good luck – and hurry.  Chiriko and the Miko are in trouble no da!"\\

Vidal started awake as Chichiri said that.  He looked in surprise at the kesa, shakujo, and kasa in a neat pile to the right of the altar.  Deciding to follow the advice in his dream, he collected the items and put them on.  He put the kasa on easily, but he looked with bewilderment at the kesa.  He did not know how to wear the robe or cloak as Chichiri had been, so he wrapped it around his shoulders instead and tied it at his neck.

Now that he was settled, he picked up the shakujo and turned from the altar towards the door of the church.  As he walked, he was only slightly surprised to notice that he was disappearing.

****Back at the School****

The trigger on the gun was pulled back slowly.  Tsunami knew that the bullet would come out and kill her in a matter of seconds.

In the period where she waited, unhappily but calmly, for the bullet to bite, she could have sworn that she heard a voice speak._ "Don't kill her.  Kill the other girl."_

And suddenly the trigger was released.  It wasn't pulled back; it was just… let go.  She blinked at the sudden, unexpected change in her immediate future, which now looked like it would be a lot longer than she had formerly anticipated.  Then she glanced over at Kotori, knowing because of that voice – that strange, somehow familiar voice – that Kotori would be fired at very, very soon.

She didn't know what to do.  She wanted to save Kotori, but she just did not know how.  She glanced around, but all of her friends were separated from her by the possessed mob.

_I am one of the Suzaku Seven!_  The thought came from somewhere deep inside of Tsunami.  The voice was both hers and not hers, as if it came from a faraway memory.  It was the part of her that was not just Tsunami, a normal teenaged girl, but Chiriko, the Suzaku seishi.  The world seemed to pause as she realized the significance of that.

_I'm not just Tsunami any more._  She looked at Kotori, desperately wanting to help.  _It is my duty to protect my miko, and my friends._  She thought about why she wanted to protect Kotori.  _She is like a sister to me, and she is my friend._  _I have to do something, anything, to help.  I_ must _help her.  I_ am _Chiriko of the Suzaku Seishi!_

Tsunami felt strange, and then, for a minute, she _was_ completely Chiriko.  She had all of his memories, all of his emotions, all of his doubts and worries, all of his belief in his country and Suzaku, and all of his caring and bravery for the sake of his miko.  _Suzaku!  Please, help me save your chosen priestess!_  A rush of adrenaline hit Tsunami – no, now she knew she was completely _Chiriko_ – like a tidal wave.  With strength she normally would not possess, she pulled out of the grip of the gangster holding her down and tried to pull the gun away from the person about to fire it at Kotori.

Her energy, even given extra strength by her adrenaline rush, was still not up to that of a man, especially that of one controlled by a demon.  She was smacked with the gun in her face, and before she lost consciousness she could feel herself being thrown against the wall.  Then the world faded from Tsunami's view.

The man that had just hurled Tsunami into the brick wall of the cafeteria turned back to Kotori with the gun.  He again pointed it towards Kotori.

It was at that moment that two events happened.

One was Hikaru, enraged by what had happened to her sister, began to fight with renewed energy.  Person after person fell from hits on the head by her tessen.

The second was a red chi blast was fired from the shadows at the gun.  It was knocked out of the controlled person's hands, and then another two chi blasts freed Kotori and knocked the opponents away from her.

Following the second event, Vidal stepped out from the shadows near one of the cafeteria doors and greeted everyone with a hello as he knocked people out with his staff.  Finally the people being hit stopped getting back up.

As the seishi began to fight with strength renewed from their will to survive, a curious event happened.  As a beast-like roar sounded throughout the cafeteria.  It seemed to echo over and over as specks of blue light came up from the possessed people until they vanished into darkness.  The opponents that were still standing collapsed to the ground, with every single one of them unconscious.

Vidal looked at his hands curiously as Tahir sat down where he stood with a sigh of relief.  Lee and Kotori were looking around in surprise.  Slowly, all of them looked with worry towards the blacked out Tsunami.

Hikaru knelt down next to her sister and checked her over for any injuries.  She swore when she touched the back of Tsunami's head and her fingers came out red.  Tsunami was bleeding, though it wasn't extremely bad.  "Damn.  We need to get her to a doctor, or at least get her to someplace where she can rest for awhile."  She glanced towards Vidal.  "Thanks for joining us.  _Finally._  Can you help get Tsunami to anyplace safe?"

"Will my apartment work?  No one else lives there anymore."  He paused as he recalled the reason why, but then he shook it off.  "I think I can get us there, though I'm not quite sure."

"Whatever.  Just get us someplace where she can rest, okay?"

"Right."  Vidal closed his eyes to concentrate, and then they all disappeared in a bright crimson light.  The cafeteria was left gratefully behind.

~**TBC**~

**Author's Note #2:** Ah… It seems ironic to me that a person who planned to become a Catholic priest ends up using Buddhist tools… but it just might be me.

And a note to Rayna (the real one): You're a great friend, but enough with the complaints already.  It's more fun to flame people over a phone.  (That makes me think of a song!  Authors roasting over an open review… No, doesn't sound right.)  *shrugs*  Rayna is a nice name, so I named the character Rayna.  It's that simple.

And did I spell the name of Chichiri's staff correctly?  Is it shakujo?  Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Sorry if this chapter was shorter than usual.  I just wanted to get it out as soon as I could.

Peace,

Chibigreenwizardmon


	5. New Friends and Old Memories

**Disclaimer: **I have a cute little Chichiri staff that a friend made for me.  I also have a few nice FY DVD box sets.  But I don't actually own FY.  So sad, isn't it?  I own the made-up town in Florida I used, but I don't own Florida.  My parents own a nice house there with a pool.  Too bad I don't live there right now.  I heard my brothers somehow turned the pool green…

**Warnings:** Let's see… today's menu includes cursing, but Hikaru actually curses much, much less than usual.  The count of total curses is: 3.  We have a few spoilers (again) from episode 44.  And an alternative pairing comes into play at the end… Heeheehee…

Remember, thoughts are in _italics_.

~**Rest and Recovery: New Friends and Old Memories**~****

As it turned out, Vidal's condo was very spacious.  Most of the seishi were in the living room.  However, Hikaru was acting like a worried nurse to a patched up, but still unconscious, Tsunami, who was currently resting in Vidal's bed.  She again checked to make sure that Tsunami was all right before stepping out into the hallway and gently shutting the door behind her.

Kotori was standing outside the doorway, waiting for news on how Tsunami was doing.  Seeing Kotori's pensive look, Hikaru smiled reassuringly.  "Don't ya worry, Kotori.  Tsunami'll be fine when she wakes up.  She just needs to rest a bit."

The priestess still looked troubled.  "I just…"

Hikaru waited for her to finish.  She knew that something important was on Kotori's mind, and Kotori might not say what if she interrupted right now.

Kotori sighed.  "I just don't understand why someone would risk their life to save mine.  Even when I was in Konan, if somebody tried to assassinate me, my bodyguards would risk their lives to save mine.  But why would she do that?  I don't get it…"

Hikaru carefully controlled her face, but she was curious.  _She had bodyguards?  Just how important is she back there?_  She decided not to ask, but instead answered Kotori's question.

"It's our job to protect you," was what she said aloud.  Kotori didn't look reassured, so Hikaru continued speaking.  "And Tsunami has always been willin' to help someone in trouble," she admitted.  "Like this other time about ten years ago… I'll tell ya all about it right now."

****Flashback****

Seven-year-old Hikaru was standing on the edge of a tall precipice.  Her whole family was on a camping trip, and she was really curious about the river.  She didn't know how to swim, but her best friend, who her parents had also agreed to take along on the camping trip, had dared her to get close to the river as soon as they arrived.  She had agreed, not thinking about the fact that the rain and lightning made it unpleasant to stand on a cliff above a fast river with rapids in it.

A thunderclap made her jump in surprise, and then the cliff broke under her.  She began to slip down the edge, but something hit her from the side and pushed her back onto high ground.

Immediately she noticed that Tsunami was now hanging off the edge of the cliff.

Panicking, Hikaru dove towards Tsunami and lifted her up until her little sister had finally been able to pull herself up.  Both of them sat down on the grass a good distance away from the cliff's edge, and tried to regain their breath.

Hikaru had punched Tsunami in the shoulder.  "You little idiot!  You could have been killed!  What if you had fallen, huh?  Mom would've been freaking out at me!"

Tsunami had looked at Hikaru with tears in her eyes that had immediately made Hikaru feel _very_ guilty.  "I just wanted to help you!"  She began to cry.  Through her sobs she said, "I didn't want you to die or get hurt."

In an attempt to comfort her little sister, Hikaru gave Tsunami a big hug.  "I'm sorry.  I'm sorry, Tsunami.  I didn't mean to make you cry.  I just don't understand why you risked your life to save me.  Your life is more important than mine; everybody knows you're better than me."

"That's not true, Hikaru," Tsunami had said as her tears had dried.  "Everybody is worth saving, especially you.  I really care about you, and you're a much better person than me.  And you're my sister.  I will always save my family."  Tsunami had given Hikaru a hug to help her feel better.

"You know," said Hikaru with a dry chuckle, "You talk like a darn grown-up, you're smarter than Mom or Dad, but you think of feelings like a freakin' two-year-old."

Tsunami simply said, "Yes, but it made you feel better, didn't it?" and smiled at Hikaru.

****End Flashback****

"So you see," said Hikaru, "if she thinks of you like a family member or a close friend, Tsunami will do anythin' to protect you.  She probably thinks of you as a little sister or somethin'."

While they talked, they had wandered into the main room of the condo where everyone else had been talking to each other.  It was a nice room with a very large red couch that somehow went perfectly with the blue floor.  Everybody was sitting on it, and it looked soft and plushy.  To one side was a pile of multi-colored beanbag chairs, and opposite of the couch was a very nice TV with an even nicer stereo system around it.  In front of the sofa was a long, low wood table, and to the right of the table where sliding glass doors.  The doors led out to a balcony that overlooked the ocean.

Lee was entertaining Rei with a game while he listened to Tahir and Vidal explain just what was going on, but at that statement everybody threw a puzzled look at Hikaru.  They all believed that Tsunami was much younger than she looked.  Even Rei stopped playing as she listened to the older people talking.

"Isn't she younger than Kotori?" Tahir asked curiously.

Hikaru laughed out loud.  She knew Tsunami looked younger than she was and enjoyed it when people got confused.  "Nope," she said as she grinned.  "Tsunami's sixteen; didn't ya know that?"

"Huh?"  Tahir looked confused.  "But she looks maybe thirteen or younger!  She has to be fourteen at the most!"  Kotori nodded in agreement.

"Well," drawled Hikaru cheerfully, "if she was fourteen, my mom wouldn't allow her to take college courses in her spare time, would she?"

Everyone was staring.  "You mean… your sister," Lee asked, "is a genius?"

"Damn straight she is!" exclaimed Hikaru.  "Her seishi power may be intelligence, but she was smart before that fuckin' ball of light popped under her skin!"

Rei looked up from the card game (Go Fish!) that she was playing with Lee.  "Big brother, what does, "fuckin',' mean?" she asked innocently.  Her eyes looked trustingly up at her brother, who was gaping and turning a bright red.

"Uh, um, it's something that you should _never_ say, Rei," he finally managed to get out.  He glared at Hikaru.  "No _polite_ person would ever say it, either.  Promise me that you'll never be impolite and say the word that Hikaru did, Rei."  His gaze on his sister was firm, but loving, like he was her father instead of her brother.

Rei nodded and smiled.  "I promise, Big Brother."  She looked back at her card game.  "Do you have an 'Ace'?"

Lee sighed and handing over his Ace from his hand.  Rei smiled more, and added yet another pair to the pile growing in front of her.

Hikaru snickered as she watched Lee getting beaten horribly by the five-year-old.  "Maybe we should play Poker sometime, _Obake-chan_.  I could probably get all of your money at once with the type of luck you have."  She grinned, her fangs poking out, as Lee turned a brighter red than he had before when he heard the nickname that she used.

"Don't call me that!" he protested and sent a pillow flying in her direction.  Lee had watched enough Fushigi Yuugi to know what "Obake-chan" meant, and he wasn't particularly pleased to be called "Little Ghost".

As if it were a reflex, Hikaru pulled out her tessen and pointed it towards the pillow flying towards her.  "Rek-" she began.

Vidal finally woke up out of the meditation he had gone into to relax when he heard that somehow familiar phrase.  "Wait a second!  Don't use that in here!" he shouted desperately.  He didn't know exactly what the metal fan did, but for some reason the image of his condo in flames popped into his mind.

Hikaru paused and asked, "Why?"  She turned her head slightly towards Vidal, and then the pillow hit her in the back of the head.  It had been thrown hard enough for her to lose her balance and fall onto the sofa.  It just happened to be that Vidal was sitting where she landed.

"DAAA!" he yelped as her fan almost hit his face.  It thudded so close to his head he could feel the metal against his ear.  Luckily for him, the tessen hitting the sofa had stopped Hikaru's fall.  Her knee was inches away from his lower abdomen.  He paled when he realized how close he had come to some very excruciating pain.

Sheepishly, Hikaru stepped away and pulled the tessen out of the back of the sofa.  "Erm… oops," she said while she picked foam off of the tessen.  Then her face grew angry again.  "Vidal, why did you distract me right then?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Tahir explained as he relaxed back against his portion of the sofa.  He had tensed up when Hikaru had been about to use her tessen.  "If you had used that dinky fan of yours, this whole place might've been on fire."

"Hey!" said Hikaru protectively as she hugged her tessen and rubbed it against her face.  "It's not a fan; it's a tessen! And so what if the condo would have caught on fire?  The pillow that Obake-chan threw hit me in the head!"

Tahir sighed and rolled his eyes.  "Idiot.  Your family seems to have a thing for getting hit on the head.  You could have ducked.  At least that sister of yours couldn't have avoided it."  Ignoring the glare coming from Hikaru, he continued, "She must have picked up some idiocy from you, though, because it's silly to just rush into a fight like that."  Hikaru glowered at Tahir for making fun of Tsunami and her.  Her face looked like it was going to explode from unconcealed rage.

*******

_It was a dream.  It_ had _to be a dream because there was no other explanation why she would be experiencing this exact moment.  The prayer wheel of Miboshi in her hand, she sought to get rid of a darkness that overpowered her.  She brought the prayer wheel closer to her, two other wounds protesting the movement.  Then she pierced her chest, realizing while she did it that she was in the body of Chiriko when he was Ou Doukun.  A blackness that was different than the evil in her – no, in his – body began to envelop her mind.  A triumphant peace overcame him as he held onto the evil and made sure it died with him.  He had saved his friends.  Through it all he felt the pain of his body slowly bleeding to death…_

Tsunami shot awake with a sneeze*.  She was glad she had awakened before Chiriko had died.  She couldn't quite remember the sensation of dieing, and she didn't really want to.

[I didn't wish to die,] said a voice in her head.

She sat up and looked around.  She didn't know where the voice had come from.  Then again, she did not know where she was, either.

[Your sister, Hikaru-san, had to swathe our head in bandages because of the wound you acquired through the battle with the people that had been possessed with the demon.  Vidal-kun took all of you, including Lee-kun and Rei-san, to his condo to allot you time to recover,] the voice explained to her.

She still didn't see who was talking to her.  "It's not your head; it's my head," she corrected the voice.

[I apologize for confusing you, Tsunami-san, but it is _our_ head, as I mentioned before.]  The voice paused.  [Though I have to admit that it is an unusual feeling to have your consciousness inside the being of reincarnation of yourself that is the opposite gender.]

She finally got it.  {What?  You're Chiriko, and you're inside my body?}  She paused.  {Wait… Aren't we the same person?}

Her head shook on the behalf of Chiriko.  [Yes, we are, but I believe our consciousnesses were separated when we were injured.]

"Oh," she said aloud.  "That explains it.  So now I have a split personality, in a way?"

"That is correct," said Chiriko with her mouth.  The voice was deeper than Tsunami's.

"That's disturbing," she told him.  "Should we tell the other seishi?"

Her head nodded.  "I believe that we should to prevent confusion, but we shouldn't say anything until all the seishi are gathered.  It may reduce their confidence in themselves if they realize that _they_ may end up with their former selves as a separate person inside their bodies."

"Then let's get out of bed.  We might as well go.  And who gets primary control over my body?"

"You should.  I am unused to such a body, and unusual actions will attract unwanted attention.  But I do not want to feel constrained.  May I have control when there is no one around?"

"Sure.  If that's settles, let's go."  She slid off the bed and then walked out of the room across the soft blue carpet floor.  

She looked to the left and saw only more doors.  There were three other bedrooms, a bathroom, and a closet that way.  She looked to the right and noticed more light coming from that direction.  She could see what she supposed was the front door.

Hearing the most noise come from her right, she turned that way.  She reached the end of the hallway.  To her right was a small dining room and a kitchen, and to her left was the living room.  While she noted that everyone was in the living room, Tahir run and hide behind her from a tessen-wielding Hikaru.  She looked around, wondering what was going on before she saw Hikaru holding her tessen and sweat-dropped.

"Wow, your sister is overprotective," Tahir said.  "I was just joking about her habits rubbing off on you, and she came after me with a tessen!"  He made puppy-dog eyes and pouted.  "I'm allowed to have a bit of fun, too, right?"

Tsunami glanced back at Tahir as he said that and a second sweat drop joined the first.  "You looked exactly like a girl when you said that."

[Nuriko is still Nuriko,] Chiriko mentally smiled at that.

{Great for her… I mean him.  It's just kind of scary…} Tsunami said as Tahir came out from behind Tsunami.  Her sweat drops vanished.

Tsunami grinned at Hikaru.  "Thanks for taking care of my injury," she said as she lightly touched the bandages wrapped around her head.  "I guess I was a little reckless.  Maybe rubbed off on me from you.

At that point, she thought she heard a, "See, I told you so!" from Tahir.  Hikaru sighed and shook her head, her fangs sticking out dejectedly.

"Why does everybody have to make fun of me?" Hikaru asked to no one as she slid her tessen back into the sheath she had found for it.  It had been on Vidal's sofa when he teleported them to the condo.

Rei, Lee, and Vidal peeked out from behind the sofa.  The reason that they hid there was evident in the burn marks across the walls and the floor.  "Man, Hikaru, you really have to get some self-control!" complained Lee as he lifted Rei back to the front of the couch.

"Hmph," Hikaru snorted disdainfully.  "It's not my fault that you couldn't dodge that fast enough, Obake-chan."

"Why, you…!" Tamahome growled threateningly.  But Hikaru's attention was back on her sister.

"Hey, Tsuna!" she called Tsunami using a nickname that usually annoyed her.  "Are ya all right?"

Tsunami thought about her split personality and grinned.  "Hai.  I feel entirely healthy.  Do you have the book?  We still need to try to find the last two seishi."

[It's not polite to perjure yourself, Tsunami-san,] Chiriko scolded her.

{I didn't exactly _lie_,} she protested while making sure that she was still paying attention to her friends.  {I do feel fine.  I didn't say I was _normal_.}

Chiriko seemed to laugh quietly at that.  [That's true, Tsunami-san.]

Tsunami turned her full attention back to Hikaru as she said, "Yeah, we 'ave the book.  We remembered to pick it up before we got back over here."

"Actually, I picked it up for you," piped up Kotori.

"Yeah, Kotori remembered," Hikaru admitted, a bit embarrassed.  "I would've forgotten, but it didn't help much.  Only Kotori was able to read it, and it didn't say anything important.

Tsunami nodded and then she glanced at her watch.  "What!  It's eleven o'clock already!  I was unconscious for two hours?"

"Uh… Yeah," said Hikaru.  "Hitting walls with your head does kinda hurt," she said while rolling her eyes.

"I know that.  I just wasn't thinking of that."  She made sad eyes at Hikaru.  "I have a lunch appointment with Warren at one, and I don't want to be late."

Hikaru smacked herself in the head.  "Oh, no!  Not _that_ kid!  Just call him and tell him you can't make it!  He's a sucky boyfriend anyway."  Everyone glanced in surprise at Tsunami when Hikaru said the word "boyfriend".

Tsunami blushed.  "Hikaru!  He's not my boyfriend!"

"Yeah, you just go on dates with him and he treats you to fancy restaurants and parties."  She rolled her eyes again.  "Definitely _not_ dates, right?"  Tsunami was even redder from embarrassment.

[You have a _boyfriend_?] Chiriko asked sounding horrified.  [_I_ have a boyfriend?]

{You're a girl in this lifetime!  What, do you want a _girlfriend_ when you _are_ a girl?} Tsunami asked to make Chiriko think straight.  _Maybe the symbol will reappear when he gets over the shock?_

[That's a wonderful reason, Tsunami.  I, um, guess it's fine…] Chiriko shut up after that.

"It's just a date between friends then!" Tsunami continued to protest aloud.  "But, um, ah-"

"Spit it out," said Hikaru.

"I kind of to go home so I can get into my dress, but currently I do not have my license.  She gave Hikaru her best sad puppy-dog eyes.  "Please?"

Hikaru's mouth twitched when she saw the large, watery eyes.  "I still don't-"

Tsunami gave an even sadder look to Hikaru.

"I _hate_ that look," Hikaru informed her.  A few moments more, and she relented.  "All right; I'll try to get ya there.  I don't think we're close to our house, so ya can't walk."

Tsunami smiled.  "Thank you, Hikaru!"

"Um, I just don't have a car right now, but I do 'ave my driver's license."  She turned to Vidal.  "So, do you 'ave a car I can use?"

Vidal sweat-dropped.  "Yes, but…" He thought of Hikaru driving recklessly in his nice car.  "I don't want to have to buy a new one, you know?"

A vein above her eye twitched.  "Are you _hinting_ at something?"  She began to reach for her tessen.

"Daa…" was all he was able to get out while he imagined his condo (that had cost even more than the car) going up in flames.  He mentally shook away that thought.  "Okay, okay!  You can borrow it!  But you better drive carefully, okay?"

Hikaru looked disappointed.  "Oh, all right…" Everyone else in the room sweat-dropped.

*******

Two hours later, Hikaru was driving Tsunami to the restaurant because she could not drive.  The restaurant was a fancy, well-known one called "The Shining Star".  It was mostly known for its classy oriental food and its round black high ceiling, which was painted to look like the night sky.  In the center was a large crystal chandelier that represented the moon.  The bottom floor was made to look as much as the outdoors as possible while still retaining the classy look it had.

As they pulled up to the restaurant, Tsunami noticed Warren, her date, standing near the entranceway.  He had a strong oriental look about him and was a few inches taller than she was, as well as a year older.  He had thick black hair and deep brown irises.  He was wearing a nice white dress shirt and dark green slacks with a matching tie.  He also had on nice leather shoes and was holding the jacket to his suit over one of his arms.

Most girls (and some boys) in Tsunami and Hikaru's high school admitted that he was cute.  Neither Hikaru nor Tsunami had ever said that, but the school gossip had talked about Tsunami and Warren being a very cute couple.  They had never actually officially become boyfriend and girlfriend, but today was the one-year anniversary of their unofficial dating.

Tsunami waited for a minute as Hikaru lectured her in place of their mother.  It summed up as, "Don't do anything stupid.  I'll be here to pick you up in an hour."  Tsunami just smiled and nodded as she stepped out of the car.  She was wearing one of her nicer dresses.  It was green and feminine, but not by using frills and laces.  It hung gracefully on her body, but it was not extremely showy.  She had also let her hair down instead of having it in her usual short, messy ponytail.

"Nice to see you, Warren!" Tsunami greeted him happily.  She slipped her hand into his.

"It's good to see you, Tsunami," said Warren, blushing slightly as he held her hand.  "How have you been doing lately?"

"Fine, thanks," she replied, smiling at him and blushing a bit herself.

[Untrue,] grumbled Chiriko.  [I'm here.  I can't believe it.  When I get reincarnated, I go on a date with a guy.  It doesn't quite appeal to me.]

She ignored Chiriko and walked calmly into the restaurant with Warren.

~**TBC**~

* In Japan, there's a belief that you sneeze if someone is talking about you.  I got this from Rurouni Kenshin, by the way.  It's such a cool anime…

**Author's Note:** Sugoi! Fifteen reviews!  I'm so happy that a wrote a super extra-long chapter!  THANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!  (Goes off into her own little daydream full of reviews, so Hikaru comes to take over.)

Hikaru: Ahem.  Sorry if Chibigreenwizardmon… Ya know what?  That's too long of a name.  I'm callin' her Chibigreen from now on.  Sorry if Chibigreen is too f-

Chibigreen: (Wakes up from daydream.) Hikaru-san! No cursing in the author notes! (Goes into daydream about Tasuki + Chichiri scenes.)

Hikaru: I don't see why I can't f-

Chibigreen: You like red hair more than you would like green hair, right?

Hikaru: That would be gross!  D- (Chibigreen holds up green hair dye.) _Darn_ you.  What took you so long to update, anyways?

Chibigreen: (Glares.)  Do you know the differences between a male and female moss?

Hikaru: Er… One has b-

Chibigreen: Don't even say it.

Hikaru: Ah… I don't wanna know?

Chibigreen: That's correct.  Now I need to finish the next few chapters and explain _why_ Tsunami can't drive…  Ooh, and _this_ will happen _then_, and… Oh, I just got the best idea!  Heeheehee…

Hikaru: (Sweat-drops.) Chibigreen is doing her freaky "I'm doing something strange and evil with your life" laugh again.  I think I'll leave now…  (Walks out with a humungous sweat-drop on her forehead.)

Chibigreen:  Now I'm done here.  I'll go now, too… on to Chapter 6 and some *ahem* interesting akugis!  Peace!  Review, please!


	6. A Realization (with a note to readers)

~**A Large and Slightly Important Author's Note, a Short Chapter, and Some Akugis**~

Gomen nasai for not updating in so long!  I had – wait, that's I _have_ – a whole bunch of end of the year projects due.  (I hate research papers.  I especially hate having to do three of them at once.)   Anyways, there's a bit about the story I'd like you (the readers) to vote on.

You see, I'm having a bit of a problem deciding on the pairings (except for Hotohori + Nuriko).  I really can't decide which is best.  The first version of this story I wrote with Vidal + Tsunami (Chichiri + Chiriko) – according to a beta reader for that version (my friend Rayna) it worked out really well.  (Also according to her, I made Tahir masculine enough for her to want to glomp.)  However, the problem with Vidal + Tsunami is… well… it's _Chiriko_.  I mean, I liked it, but I also had to write the poor kid pretty out of character.  Well, _I_ think she was OOC.  (She, as in Tsunami.)

Personally, I like Hikaru + Vidal better, but I also like Hikaru + Kouji's reincarnation.  I have a scene with him in it planned sometime soon…

Anyways, I wanted to point out that Tsunami is smarter than the average person normally, but when her symbol glows she becomes a genius, as in a very, very intelligent genius.  The same would go for Rayna's swordsmanship and, in the future, Amiboshi's skill as on a flute.

Another thing you can help me with is this: I need names for most of the Seiryuu Seishi and other characters (both male and female names would be appreciated here; gender switches are happening for these people as well, and some of these would go to people that are not Seiryuu).  So, you can suggest a name, as well as a character that you think should have it, and if I use it I'll give you credit.  Does that sound good?

And now for a mini-chapter!  Here it is… a few paragraphs long, but it's slightly important to the plot of the story!  And you get six akugis at the end!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own FY.  *breaks down crying*

**Warnings:** None.  This could be my first G-rated chapter. ^_^;;;  Though the akugis are really weird, none have cursing/foul language.  Their rating might be PG or PG-13, though, because of the context.

~**Chance Meeting: A Realization**~

At that same time that Warren and Tsunami were meeting outside, Rayna was eating a normal dinner with her mother.  Her father had died a while before, and her mother occasionally took her places to try to compensate for being absent from the house so often.  She delicately picked up a sushi with her chopsticks and proceeded to eat it while her mother talked about how her company was doing.  Her mother ran a multimillion-dollar computer corporation, and she was very happy with her job.  Rayna had used to be content with her life, too… Until the day that she realized she was a character from an anime, but in the real world.

_I can't believe I'm Hotohori,_ she though.  _He was an emperor, and I'm just… a very rich kid.  I suppose that does make sense… And I am good at fencing.  Does that mean I was Hotohori_ before _I received the full power?  Or was I_ not _Hotohori before I received my power?  I am confused..._

As she thought that, Rayna noticed a brunette girl walk into the restaurant with a boy of Chinese ethnicity.  With her newfound powers, she was able to sense a warm, strange power coming from the girl, and she took a second unobtrusive look.  The girl reminded her of Chiriko.  She almost choked on her sushi as a thought occurred to her.  _Are there other seishi out there?_ _Is_ she _Chiriko?  But Chiriko was a boy… Hotohori was a boy, too. I guess it does not matter._

"Is everything all right, dear?"  Her mother's concerned voice broke into Rayna's thoughts.

"Yes, mother."

"Why did you choke?"

Rayna mentally sighed.  She was eighteen, but her mother still tried to take care of her as if she were ten.  "I just saw someone who looked like an anime character," she said a bit stiffly.  She knew that her mother did not like anime.

"An _anime_ character, dear?  You should do something more constructive with your life!  Cartoon characters will get you nowhere in life," said her mother condescendingly.

"Unless you manage to produce one that is a hit."  _Or unless it might be real,_ she thought to herself.  _I'll have to try to look into that idea and see if I can find other seishi._

She mentally made a note to herself to find out that the girl who looked like Chiriko was.  She just might actually be Chiriko.

~**TBC**~****

**The New Warriors Akugi **(Chapter 1)

Vidal: Too bad I'm still alive.

(A light appears shining from above and the sound of harps playing is heard.)

Mysterious voice: You're not.  Come towards the light…

(Vidal begins to stand, but Hikaru pops in.)

Hikaru: This is an illusion! (Tackles Vidal to keep him away from the light and pulls out her tessen… which she really had on her the whole time, though she didn't *find* it 'til chapter 3.)  Tomo, you're not supposed to be in this story yet!

Mysterious (Tomo's) voice: And why not?  I'm going to get myself a cute guy to have fun with!  Kekekeke!

Hikaru: (Looks disgusted.  An SD Vidal also looks freaked out from beneath Hikaru's feet.)  Yeah, well I have news for you, idiot!  It's called: REKKA SHINEN! (Fire shoots towards Tomo's illusion of heaven.  Loud, obnoxious screaming is heard.)

**The New Warriors Akugi **(Chapter 2)

Tahir: So you're saying that there's probably these bad Seiryuu guys around that we should watch out for?  And two other groups...?

Tsunami: The Genbu Seishi and the Byakko Seishi.  They will probably be our allies once we earn their trust.

(Old version of Tokaki of the Byakko Seven walks in.)

Tokaki: (Grabs Tahir's hand.) I'll be glad to work with pretty ladies like you.  (Looks over Tahir.) Ugh!  You're a man!

Tahir: (Vein popping out in forehead.)  Jerk!  (Punches Tokaki _through_ the nearest wall, causing the whole set to collapse.)

Tokaki: Itai… (Ouch…)

**The New Warriors Akugi **(Chapter 3)****

(The gun pointed towards Tsunami's face.  Evil maniacal laughter is heard in the background.)

Tsunami: Is that in the script?

(Gun goes off, and instead of a bullet coming out, a fake-looking flag with the words, "Bang! You're dead," on them.

Tsunami: (Wide-eyed at the flag.) An excellent use of onomatopoeia in comedy.  (Chiriko symbol fades.) SCARY! I thought I was dead!  (Pulls her own gun out.)  I'm gonna kill whoever did that.

Chibigreen:  Uh, Tsunami, no need to get influenced by Hikaru…

Hikaru: What's that supposed to mean?

**The New Warriors Akugi **(Chapter 4)****

Vidal: (Eying Chichiri's scar.) How did you get that?

Chichiri: WAAH!  Why does everybody pick on me no da?  I'm just a normal guy with a scar na no da!  Life is so unfair no da!  (Continues to cry and rant for another ten minutes.)

Vidal: (Sweat-drops.)

**The New Warriors Akugi **(Chapter 5)

Rei: Do you have an Ace?

Lee: (Reluctantly hands over his Ace.) Darn…

Rei: Yay!  I win!  How much money do I get?

Lee: (Confused.) Huh?

Rei: Yeah, you know?  I won so I get money!  Right?

Lee: (Shakes his head no.) Um, no…

Rei: (Starts to cry.)  But I want money to buy dollies!  WAAAAH!

**The New Warriors Akugi **(Chapter 6)****

Rayna's mother: Why did you choke?

Rayna: 'Cause I was eyeing this incredibly hunky guy with the cutest butt I've ever seen.

Rayna's mother: (Sweat-drops.)  Is she actually my daughter?  (Gets a starry look in her eyes.)  I'm so PROUD!

**A/N:** Whew!  This and a research paper done finished in one night!  Hope you enjoyed it!

Here's a thank you to all who reviewed the past few chapters (in order):

Sansele: Sugoi!  My first ever reviewer!  Thanks for the tip, and the nice comments.

Sakura Sachiko: Yep, Chichiri is very huggable.

milady: I tried to get the chapters up as quickly as possible.  I hope you like the new twists.

CLAMPraven: Thanks for asking about Tahir's relationship with Kotori… It'll make this fic a whole lot more twisty.  (And to everyone else, have you read her "Juri the Oracle" Fushigi Yuugi fic?  It's great!  Pink monks and crazy Nyan-Nyans rule!)

J. Liha: I'm trying to improve the flow of my story, but hammering it out is as nerve-wracking as writing the cliffhangers.  Yep, they are pretty evil…

Draconsis: Your review reminded me to stuff in character development and bring down the pace a bit.  I needed that reminder.  Thanks!

Trmpetplaya1: Yeah, I was pretty proud of that double cliffhanger. ^_^;;  I myself hate cliffhangers, but they're rather good for a story's health.  And asking does help. ^_^

Rayna: Wait, you gave the same rant to me when you beta-read my story.  ^_^;; Sorry if I made Tahir too irresistible for you! And maybe I'll put in Vidal + Tsunami, maybe I won't… (I'm gonna get punched after she reads this…)

Sagara Sanosuke: I loved messing around with the genders.  And believe it or not, there _is_ a reason for all the mix-ups.  (Everyone is going to laugh at that.  And Rayna: do _not_ say anything about the reason if you review.)

Well, that's all we have for today!  Thank you for reviewing (especially if you did it more than once)!

Please review!  Peace!  (Waves goodbye and falls asleep on computer.)


	7. Pina Coladas and Underage... WHAT?!

**Disclaimer: **If I owned FY, I wouldn't feel the need to write this.  Since I don't, I get stuck with some wacky ideas that I have to write down.  And so this story is formed.

**Warnings:** Hikaru gets really mad at one point in this chapter, so she begins to curse like heck.  She also curses during a few other parts.  Mentioning of underage (for the U.S., at least) drinking of alcoholic beverages.  And here we start the romance!  And this is a fun, mostly plot-less (unless you're talking about romance) chapter.  So if you are scared of things with no plot, run awaaaaay. ^__^

~**Interlude of Embarrassment: Piña Coladas and Underage… WHAT?!**~

***Back at Vidal's condo…***

The front door slammed.  "HELLO!" shouted Hikaru as she opened the door.  She looked around and noticed that everyone was in the kitchen cooking.  "Hey, Vidal, you have one heck of a nice car!  Can I have it?"

"No!" came the negative reply over the sound of a blender.

Hikaru blinked.  "Wow, I didn't know that you could fit so much "no" into a "no"," she muttered.  "Geez, it's just a nice new Celica…"  She threw the keys to his car on the sofa and then turned around and headed into the kitchen.  At a small table, Tahir, Rei, Kotori, and Lee were sipping at some type of drink while Chichiri poured some ice into the blender and turned it on again.  "What are ya makin', Vidal?"

"Piña coladas," he replied over the noise of the ice crushing.

She raised an eyebrow at that.  "You're letting a kid drink alcohol?"  She smiled.  "That's so fuckin' cool!"

Lee snorted into his drink.  "These are non-alcoholic ones, you jerk," Lee told her blandly.

She frowned.  "What?  Yer makin' piña coladas, and yer not even putting alcohol in them?"  Vidal nodded while he worked at the blender.  "That sucks.  I'm gonna go find something else to drink."

The blue-haired reincarnated monk didn't pay attention to what Hikaru had said until about two minutes had passed.  He heard some glass clinking and then went over what she said.  "Daaa!"

Kotori, Rei, Tahir and Lee stared as Vidal suddenly became super deformed.  Then he was running away from the blender, through the hallway, and to his room.  The door was open, and Hikaru was seated on his bed holding a bottle of whiskey.  Vidal was still super deformed, and he began running back and forth.  "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!" he yelled.  "You're not supposed to… That is, you shouldn't… Daa!"

She grinned wickedly when she saw the panicked expression covering his face..  "So, you're drinkin' below the legal age limit, huh?"  She grabbed the cork and began to pull it from the bottle.  It came out easily, and she carelessly dropped it to the floor.  "Yep, this bottle's been drunk out of.  I suppose you went to college with a hangover occasionally?"

"Only once…" he said helplessly as she drank straight from the bottle.

Hikaru raised an eyebrow.  "You mean you actually did?" she asked between gulps.  "I wouldn't of expected that from you."  Then she thought about it, and grinned at the still super deformed Vidal.  "Maybe I should have."  She took another drink.  "You've shrunk; did you know that?  And your face is strange."  His face did look like he had Chichiri's mask on.

He looked quizzically at her and then down at himself.  "Daa!  What happened!  I'm small!"  He began to run around in circles.  "Da!  How do I get out of this?  Maybe if I go…?" As he said that, a "poof" sound that could have been taken straight from a cartoon was heard.  In a puff of yellow smoke, Vidal got back to his normal size.  "That was weird, you know?"

The tipsy redhead nodded as she took another long drink from the bottle.  "Yeah… I thought for a second it was just the alcohol, but then I realized that you really had shrunk."

"You know, you shouldn't drink," he said feebly as she drunk from the bottle again.  "You're below the legal age limit, too, and you've had at least enough to fill eight shot glasses by now."

He sweatdropped as she hugged the bottle.  "No!  I don't wanna give it up!  I don't wanna!"

"Sorry, Hikaru, but that's more than enough…" Vidal said as he grabbed the bottle and tried to pull it away from her.

"No!" she said happily as she pulled it back.  "There's still some left!"

He tried to grab it again, but when she again pulled it away he tripped and landed on her.  The end result was Hikaru laying down on the bed with Vidal on top of her, and both were drenched in whiskey.

Both he and Hikaru turned a bright red at their compromising position.  "Vidal, get the fuck off of me."

He tried and his head immediately ran into the whiskey bottle.  "OW!  Can you please move the bottle?  Hitting glass with your head _hurts_, you know?" 

Still lightly red, Hikaru removed the bottle.  "If _you_ hadn't tried to take _my_ whiskey away, this wouldn't of happened."  She pouted.  "It was only a bit of whiskey.  Why did you have to try an' take it away?"

"You're not supposed to drink," Vidal replied as he carefully got off of Hikaru.  _This is_ way _too embarrassing.  What would somebody think if they walked in here right now?_  Then he tripped on the cork that Hikaru had dropped on the floor earlier and he fell back on the bed.  This time, their foreheads smashed together.  Both of them blushed when they realized that their lips were almost touching.

Unfortunately for them, Lee walked by the room on his way to the bathroom.  His eyes widened when he looked inside.  To him, it certainly looked like they were rather… occupied.  He looked from the bottle of whiskey, back to them and their drenched clothes, and then back to the bottle of whiskey.  It certainly looked like it would lead to a scene from a hentai fan fiction or some type of romance novel.

His mouth opened and a comment came out without him really thinking about what he was saying.  "What the heck?!  Hikaru and Vidal are making out?!"  He instantly regretted saying it out loud when he remembered one important fact – Hikaru's flame-throwing fan.

"Uh-oh…"

*******

In the kitchen, Tahir, Rei, and Kotori listened as Lee shouted, "What the heck?!  Hikaru and Vidal are making out?!" from somewhere else in the condo.

Tahir's eyes widened, and Kotori noticed.  She hadn't understood the term used by Lee.  "Tahir, what's "making out" mean?"

Tahir blushed as he tried to think of a nice way to put it.  He couldn't think of any modest way of explaining it, especially because Rei was in the room, and she was too young to need this subject to be explained.  _Why am I blushing?  It's not embarrassing or anything… Well, it kind of is.  But how can I explain this?  "Making out is two people getting all over each other, but not quite doing_ it_."?  No, she probably wouldn't understand what _it _was._  _"And sometimes it can be as far as actually doing _it_."  No, I definitely cannot explain it that way.  Oh, this is_ _embarrassing.  I'm going to get Lee for putting me in this position._

Kotori was staring at Tahir as he spaced out with a large blush on his face.  She didn't know what he was thinking, and she had a feeling it was related to certain things that guys and girls (as well as sometimes guys and guys or girls and girls) did together.

_"It involves kissing and hugging and being _really _close to another body."  Can I put it that way?  Maybe… _Tahir was continuing his thoughts. _…I think I would like to kiss Kotori…  What?  What did I just think?  She's a girl.  I'm a guy.  I'm_ gay_!  I don't want to do that… do I?_

He mentally kicked himself for even the thought.

_No, no, no!  I don't really like her that much… and, I have a strong feeling that she's meant for someone besides me.  I wonder where all these emotions are coming from?  Is it something to do with me being a seishi?  …I wonder…_

His thoughts were shortly interrupted.  In the house, everything had been quiet for a few seconds after Lee's shout.  Then suddenly there was a loud bump as if something hit the ground.  That was followed by a large screech on the part of Hikaru.  "LEEEEE!!"

A cry of, "We weren't making out, you know?" was also heard on Vidal's part.

"Shit!" shouted Lee out loud.  Hikaru must have drawn her tessen, because the next thing that was hear was:

"REKKA SHI-"

"NO, HIKARU!  NOT IN MY CONDO!"

"AAAH!" screamed Lee as another "bump" was heard.  "YOU ALMOST TOOK OUT MY EYE!"

A crash was heard, and then, "Nooooo!  That door was expensive!  Stop it, please!  WAAH!  What are you trying to hit me with it for?  I didn't do anything!"

"You tried to take _my_ whiskey away, and then you fell on top of me!  I'm gonna get you for that, you pervert!"

"AAAH!" both Lee and Vidal were screaming now.  Then there were sounds of running and people bumping into things.  Tahir thought he could hear something hard whack someone every once in a while, and he briefly wondered how it felt to have a diamond tessen smash into you.  He decided that he didn't want to know.

Everyone still in the kitchen sweat-dropped.  "Rei, do you think Lee will be all right?" asked Kotori with concern.

Rei nodded as she sipped her cold piña colada calmly.  "Yes.  Big Brother gets into fights _all_ of the time, but he never ever gets hurt."

"I hope you're right…"

"Shouldn't we stop the fight?" asked Tahir while listening to various sounds of smacking and clashing.  Then, as he heard another crash, he answered himself.  "Never mind.  I'm sure that they can take care of themselves."

*******

Vidal ducked as Hikaru threw one of his heavy college textbooks at his head.  Luckily, it landed on the sofa, and nothing was broken.  It was just bad luck that she had found his stack of textbooks.  Now she had a dangerous weapon (besides her tessen) and she seemed to be intent on causing him and Lee severe pain.

On the bright side for both Vidal and Lee, Hikaru wasn't carrying the whiskey bottle anymore.  Vidal just regretted the fact that he might need to buy new bed sheets after his had an encounter with broken glass.

If the fight hadn't been going on, perhaps someone would have heard a knock on the door.

Deciding that being hit with a book on computer programming was _not_ a good idea, he made a dash for the front door in a desperate attempt at escaping.  As Lee hid behind the sofa, Vidal ran for the door in SD form.  Again he did not realize his decrease in height until he realized that he could not reach the door handle.

He flattened himself against the door as Hikaru came forward with an open tessen pointing towards him.  "DAAA!  Hikaru, you don't really want to hurt me, right?"

Again no one heard a knock on the door.

Hikaru smacked the tessen against her hand as she slowly approached with a smirk on her face.  "BWAHAHA!  I'm sure this won't hurt at all!"  She pulled back her tessen.  "REKKA-"

A feminine voice, muffled by the door, called out, "Vidal!  What is going on in our apartment?  You haven't answered the door yet, and I can hear you in there!"  A key was heard turning in door, and then it slammed open before SD Vidal could move out of the way.  He pushed by the door until he was slammed between the wall and the door.

A lady in a white tank top and blue jeans with blue hair, as well as a man in denim shorts and a black T-shirt with even darker blue hair, stood in the doorway.  Both were staring at Hikaru, and she was staring at them with her jaw unhinged.

Hikaru gulped and then tried to slip out of the room, but the girl spoke up.  "Hikaru.  What are you doing here?" she asked.  She slowly punctuated each word, as if she were talking to a small child.  Hikaru froze, and then turned while wearing a tight smile.

"Er, hi, Kara… Didn't notice you were there… Er, nice to see you again… big sister…" She had her tessen carefully hid behind her back.

"I'm sure," replied Kara.  "But I don't consider myself as part of your family any longer."

Hikaru exploded, "Dammit, why not?  You just don't fuckin' get it, do you?  The whole fuckin' family loves you, even if you're not Mom and Dad's real kid!  Hell, I'm adopted, too!  Why do you act so fuckin' selfish?  Tsunami misses you like hell sometimes!"  By the time she had finished her curse-filled rant, her face was slightly flushed and her hair was tousled.

Kara flinched back as if she had been slapped, and the whole condo was horribly quiet for a few seconds.  Even the sounds of chatter that had been coming from the kitchen had stopped.  "Is there anything else you'd like to add?" she asked quietly while not meeting Hikaru's eyes.  The stranger who had come in with her put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

She couldn't think of anything to say for a few seconds, but then she grinned with fangs showing.  "Yeah.  You smashed Vidal with the door."  She pointed to the door that the man, whom she didn't recognize, was still holding open.  The man hastily let go of the door and shut it, and an SD Vidal fell over backwards.  Part of his face was red where it had smashed against the wall.

"That hurt…" he said as he stood up.

"Um, Vidal," said Hikaru.  When he looked at her inquisitively, she pointed at him and motioned with her hand.  He looked down, and when he realized he was SD, he went "poof" again in a cloud of yellow smoke and went back to his normal size.

Kara sagged against the man.  Both looked so surprised that Hikaru burst out laughing.  "BWAHAHAHA!  I guess you didn't expect _that_ one.  How about this one?"  She pulled out her tessen and pointed it towards Vidal.  "Rekka Shi-"

Vidal's eyes widened.  "No, Hikaru!  You might hurt someone no da!"

"-nen," she finished very, very quietly.  A little flame went out of the top of the fan and sizzled the tip of Vidal's peacock-like bangs.  The jaws of Kara and the other man hit the floor at the speed of sound.

"You're _anime_ characters?" shouted Kara as soon as she recovered.

"No!  We're just little green aliens from fuckin' Mars!" Hikaru said sarcastically.

Vidal finished putting the fire out of his hair and said, more calmly, "Perhaps.  What we _are_ is the Suzaku seishi."

"Y-You are?  How come neither of you ever told me?"

Vidal's eyes narrowed.  "Because," he said in complete seriousness, "I only found out after you cheated on me and I – stupidly – tried to kill you and Henry," he said while gesturing towards Kara and the stranger – Henry.  A bitter tone was embedded in his voice.

When what he said had sunk in, Hikaru nearly dropped her tessen.  "What the fuck?" she said while glaring at Kara.  "_You_ cheated on _him_?"  Then she rounded on Vidal before she could answer.  "And _you_ fuckin' tried to kill _them_?  What the hell is wrong with you people?"

Hikaru heard some feet rubbing on the carpet and twisted around.  Then she could see that Lee was peeking out of the living room and listening.  Tahir and Kotori also were looking from the kitchen to where they were standing.

"All right, then.  We're gonna go to another room."  She glared at Vidal, Henry, and Kara.  "And then we're gonna straighten _everythin'_ out.  And I mean _everythin'_.  Let's go."  Gesturing for them to proceed her, the tense group of friends and former friends walked down the hall.  They turned into an empty and clean bedroom, and then Hikaru shut the door behind them.

*******

At the restaurant… 

Tsunami smiled at Warren as she carefully lifted a piece of sushi with her chopsticks.  When she looked down at her plate, she did not notice the look that appeared on Warren's face.  It was a look of extreme hatred, and somehow Warren's eyes shrunk down into the same shape as the pupils of a cat.  But by the time her eyes were back on Warren, the look was gone, and his eyes were back to normal.

Perhaps the only person in the whole restaurant that noticed something was wrong was sitting a few tables away.  Rayna had noticed the changed look, and in that split second she had recognized the look from the Fushigi Yuugi anime.  Her thoughts grew very concerned, and she clenched her chopsticks so firmly in her hand that her knuckles turned white.  _Miboshi!  The Chiriko-look-alike is with Miboshi!_  She knew that she would have to do something soon, as the look-alike was obviously in very great danger.

~**TBC**~

~**THE AKUGI!!!**~

Hikaru: (holding whiskey bottle) No!  I don't wanna give it up!  I don't wanna!

Vidal: Okay!  Then let me join you!  (His kasa appears in his hand, and out of it plops cases of sake.)

Hikaru:  Cool hat!  Can I have it?

Vidal: No!  The kasa is mine!

Tahir: (walks in) Oh, a fishing hat!  Can I have it?  I fish a lot!

Hikaru:  I want it!  It can carry a ton of booze!

Tahir: No!  It's mine!  Mine!

(Hikaru and Tahir tackle poor Vidal to try to take his hat.)

Lee: (watching from doorway) And when they finish, I'll steal it and sell it for lots of money! ^_^

(A random fire blast from Hikaru's tessen quickly fries him as the fighting continues.)

**Author's Note: **Now I'm putting in a little recap to help everyone keep the characters straight.  These are their previous names, their reincarnation names, and their gender.  Remember that some characters haven't had big parts yet.

Miaka – Kotori (fm)

Tamahome – Lee (m)

Hotohori – Rayna (fm)

Nuriko – Tahir (m)

Chichiri – Vidal (m)

Tasuki – Hikaru (fm)

Mitsukake – Ira (m)

Chiriko – Tsunami (fm)

Miboshi – Warren (m)

Kouran – Kara (fm)

Hikou – Henry (m)

And should I include more hints at Tahir x Kotori?  Should I progress the Vidal x Hikaru/Hikaru x Vidal moments?  Tell me your opinions in a review, please!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed!  It made me feel all warm and fuzzy.  In fact, I felt so warm and fuzzy that I was eventually inspired to write a FY story that takes place in the Harry Potter world.  What possessed me to do something that weird?  Miboshi.  ^__^   Just kidding, you know?  But for the first chapter, it already got eight reviews!  Sugoi!


	8. An Evil Revealed!

**Disclaimer: **Dum deedly dum dee dum.  I crazy humming person; I no own FY.  FY owned by Watase-sama!  Dum dee dum.  Deedly dum.

**Warnings:** Um, violence and Hikaru.  Need I say anything else?

~**Betrayed Trust: An Evil Revealed!**~

Inside a bedroom decorated in tones of lavender and pink Hikaru, Vidal, Henry, and Kara were sitting.  The room, besides the pink rug and lavender carpet, seemed strangely emptied, as if someone had recently moved out of it.  Kara and Henry were seated on the uncovered bed, Vidal had grabbed a wheeled chair from the desk near the bed, and Hikaru was pacing back and forth in front of the three.  She paced from the desk to the window at the head of the bed and back to the desk several times.

Finally she looked up at Vidal.  "You go first.  You tell what led up to this whole fuckin' mess."

Vidal shifted in the chair, very uncomfortable under the gaze of the other three.  "I had just gone to the church, ya know, and then I went home.   I mean I came here."  His voice started out high and got lower as he became more serious.  "By that time, Kara was already going out with me, ya know?  I had even proposed to her.  That's when I was surprised, ya know?  Henry, Kara, and I have lived in this condo for a couple of years, ever since we started college.  We _were_ best friends.  That's when I was surprised.

"I opened the door to the apartment, and what I hear is… well… the sounds of people having sex.  I thought it might have been Henry, but then I noticed that it was _Kara's_ door that was closed.  You can imagine that I felt betrayed.  I had automatically assumed the worse.  But actually, I didn't _quite_ assume the worst.  The worst I found out when I self-righteously slammed into their room and found Kara with _Henry_ in the bed.

"I think I lost it, right then, because I went and grabbed one of my daggers from the wall in his room.  I-"

"Wait a second," Hikaru interrupted him.  "You have _daggers_ in your room?"

Vidal nodded miserably.  "Both Henry and I have daggers from when we were in a street gang.  We knew it wasn't smart to keep them around, but we decided we needed a good reminder of how stupid we were to join a gang in the first place, and having a dagger hanging on the wall worked, I guess.  The only good thing that came out of either of us joining the gang was that was where we met each other."  Hikaru nodded her understanding as Vidal continued his story.

"So I took the dagger and went back into Kara's room.  I was so angry."  He sighed and slumped his shoulders.  "I didn't know I could get like that.  I actually went back and tried to kill them, maybe just to hurt them.  I still don't know.  Both of them had some semblance of clothing back on by that time.  I fought them, and luckily Henry was able to stop me.  He wrestled the dagger away from me, though I did get cut during the struggle, and then he knocked me out by hitting me on the head."  Vidal closed his eyes, and Hikaru could swear she could see tears threatening to leak out.  She paused in her pacing and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder until he had himself composed again.

She turned to Kara.  "Let's stop there.  Now, _you_ start from where it began for you."

Hikaru's older sister swallowed against a lump in her throat.  She could truly see that Vidal regretted getting angry with them.  He wasn't even showing them bitterness over what they had done.  "It all began," she said quietly, "when Vidal left to go pray at the church.  He had recently asked me to marry him, and I really thought that was what I wanted."

"The rest started innocently enough.  Henry and I went and talked for a bit, and we decided to play a game of poker.  It was pretty stupid of us, but we decided that the loser of each round would have to drink a bit of some alcoholic drink.  We knew Vidal had a large supply that he never even touched anymore.  We took one bottle of whiskey, and then both of us slowly got drunk.  We both have very low levels of alcohol tolerance."

_So that's why the whiskey bottle was open!_ realized Hikaru as Kara continued to speak.  _Kara and Henry… they must've drank enough to get a normal person drunk._

"I don't know exactly what happened after that.  Sometime while we were cleaning up after the game and put the whiskey bottle we had used back in Vidal's room, both of us bumped into each other.  I don't know exactly what happened after that, but I do know that we ended up in the same bed.  We were slightly drunk and having sex when Vidal came back."

She shrugged.  "You heard what happened after that.  When Vidal was knocked out, we bandaged his wound and cleaned up after the place.  I wasn't sure if it was safe for me to stay or if Vidal would stay angry, so to be safe, Henry and I packed up our stuff and rented a hotel room."

Hikaru raised an eyebrow.  "Together?" she asked, with a ton of meaning behind that one word.

Kara looked at Vidal with sorrow and shame, but she nodded.  "Yes.  I… I decided that I think…" She paused.  "I think that… I want to break off the engagement."  She looked down at her lap, unable to meet Vidal's eyes, and slid her engagement ring off of her finger.

For Vidal, time seemed to freeze as the shock hit him.  The last bit of hope he had had just shattered into a billion pieces like a fragile glass chandelier that had been cut from its fixture.

Never in her life had Hikaru ever felt more like slapping her older sister.

Vidal's face paled as he stared at the ring that Kara was holding out towards him.  Tears of pure anguish welled up in his eyes, and some of them spilled over to create their salty tracks down his face.  He got up from his seat stiffly and walked to the door.  He opened it and prepared to leave, but there was one slight roadblock.

Everyone else in the house, from Tahir down to Rei, had his or her ears against where the door _had_ been and appeared to of been eavesdropping.  When the eavesdroppers saw the upset Vidal, they carefully moved out of the way as large sweatdrops appeared on their heads.  Now Vidal continued to walk, now uninhibited, away from the room.

Back at the room, Tahir was cursing under his breath.  "Stupid idiots!" he finished.  "I'll follow him and make sure he doesn't do anything idiotic or suicidal _again_," he told Hikaru.

"No, I'll go!" she told the purple-haired man.  "It's my fuckin' sisters fault in the first place!  I'll go get him!"

"You'll probably end up yelling at him," Tahir responded dryly as he leaned across the doorway, effectively blocking the redhead's exit.  "That wouldn't help.  It's a good thing that he recovered as much as he did today.  It was just this morning when he tried to kill himself, remember?"

Hikaru blinked.  "Just this morning?  Man, it's been a _long_ day!"

"That is true.  See you later!"  With a wave, Tahir went to see where Vidal had went.  They heard an exclamation of surprise, followed by a yell of, "SUZAKU!  WHY DOES THE _SUICIDAL_ ONE HAVE THE POWER TO TELEPORT?!"  Another pause was followed by, "Eheh… at least I get to drive his car so that I can search for him!  The keys are right here!  Yay!"  The others heard the sound of the front door opening and shutting.

Everyone sweatdropped after they listened to Tahir's monologue.  Henry and Kara both had bewildered looks on their faces, but then both recovered at about the same time.  "Vidal tried to _kill_ himself?"

Hikaru nodded sagely.  "That's right.  Vidal fuckin' tried to kill himself because of you gettin' screwed by lover-boy over there," she said as she jerked her thumb in Henry's direction from her place by the door.

Lee and Rei were no longer by the door.  By the time the first curse word was out, Lee had led Rei away from the door to preserve her uncorrupted language.

Kara blushed.  "Never mind that.  Can you please tell us what is going on here?"  The reincarnated bandit nodded, and she began to explain what had happened.

"All right, I'll tell ya.  It all began last night when Tsunami an' me were watchin' that anime called Fushigi Yuugi…

***Outside the restaurant…***

After finishing up dinner and going, Rayna had gone back to the restaurant to keep an eye on the people who she guessed might be Chiriko and Miboshi.  They had also finished dinner, and they were chatting in the parking lot near a nice black car.  She listened to their conversation from within her shiny red sports car.

"Hey, Tsunami," said Warren to his date.  "Since your sister isn't here, why don't I drop you off at your house?"

Tsunami smiled and nodded.  "That would be fine, thanks. Let's go."

Ten minutes later, Tsunami arrived at her house and saw that nobody was home.  "Hikaru must still be at her new friend's house.  Do you want to go in with me and hang out for a bit?" Tsunami asked Warren.

He smiled.  "Sure!  I'll beat you at whatever we do!" he said as they walked in.  "Why don't we play a PlayStation game?"  They went down the tiled entrance hall and turned left into the living room where Tsunami had received her seishi power only last night.

[What's a PlayStation?] questioned Chiriko inside Tsunami's head as she hooked up the game console to the large television.  She gave a quick explanation that included some memories from her lifetime.  [Oh!  That sounds interesting,] he commented.  [Can I try playing it for a while?]

[Sure!] she replied cheerfully as she continued to untangle and plug in various wires.  "None of these are working…" she muttered as she tried another set.  "Hey, Warren, can help me with these cables?"

A cold voice that sent chills up her spine replied, "I am not Warren.  I am Miboshi.  And I am now going to kill you, Chiriko of the Suzaku Seishi."

Tsunami froze and turned around.  She saw Warren, but now it was with Miboshi's face and holding Miboshi's prayer wheel in his hands.  "Warren…?"

Chiriko took over her body as Tsunami's mind faltered in shock.  "I had hoped for there to be no confrontation between seishi of different gods in this lifetime," sighed Chiriko as Tsunami's eyes darkened and her voice deepened slightly, "but I suppose that it was false hope.  But isn't it ironic that our reincarnations love each other?"  Chiriko felt afraid out of his mind, but he knew that showing it would do nothing.  After all, he remembered Miboshi more than he liked.

Miboshi made no reply except to spin the prayer wheel.  [We can't fight him!] Tsunami wailed.  [We're gonna die!]  As she thought/said that, Miboshi spun the prayer wheel.  All the windows and curtains closed, making the interior dark and like a scene from a nightmare as a dark energy gathered in the room.

A long, blue-scaled, snakelike demon lifted itself out of a black portal that had opened at Miboshi's/Warren's feet.  Pain coursed through Tsunami's body as the snake-demon bit her left leg and wrapped itself around her.  She would have screamed in agony, but Miboshi had already unleashed another spell that had stolen her voice away.

"I am going to make your death as excruciatingly painful as I can," said Miboshi with relish as he directed another snake-demon towards the already bleeding Tsunami.  It slithered through the air, closer and closer until Tsunami could feel its hot yet chilling breath on her neck.

Then the demon hissed and bit into Tsunami's shoulder and upper chest.  A squirt of blood colored her green shirt dark brown, and more of it began to leak from the demon's mouth.  Tsunami realized that the snake must have struck an artery because she began to feel more and more faint.

At different points around the town, six seishi and a priestess felt a pain course through their bodies.

Vidal, who had been considering drowning himself in the ocean, stepped back with a startled look on his face.

Kotori and Lee looked at each other with equally shocked expressions inside Vidal's kitchen.

Ira, studying in his dorm room, fell down as he felt the agony shoot across his whole body.  Tama came up to him and gently licked his face as he lay on the floor, panting and wondering what had just happened.

Tahir, driving in traffic, swerved and almost ran off the road.  Luckily, no one was hit.

Rayna, who had followed the couple to the house, found herself gasping for breath as the wave of pain hit her.  As she recovered, she ran to the house and began trying to break the now locked door down.

Hikaru, who had been explaining what had happened still, sat up straight as the pain hit her.  "Fuck!" she cried as tears glistened in her eyes.  "Something's happened to Tsunami!  She's dieing!"  Without stopping to explain what was going on to Kara and Henry, she raced out of the room as fast as she could.

~**TBC**~

~**THE AKUGI!!!**~

Warren: I am not Warren.  I am… A BIG, PINK BUNNY RABBIT IN A HUMAN SUIT!  *insane laughter*  (In Miboshi's place, a big, pink bunny rabbit appears holding a basket full of colorful prayer wheels with specially sharpened ends.)

Tsunami: @_@  Er… Happy Easter? (Runs away… _far_ away.)

**Author's Note: **Well, that's this chapter out.  Something tells me I should be studying for my finals instead of typing…

Tsunami: Could I be of assistance?

Chibigreen: I wish.  But this has to be done in the real world… *sigh* That is, right after I finish rewriting that last "Tears of a Phoenix" chapter.  It sucked…

Hikaru: And what did you learn from that?

Chibigreen: I should never write a chapter unless the idea was inspired on a sugar high.

Cast of ToaP: You've got that right!

Chibi Chichiri from ToaP: Wait! If she's on a sugar high, crazy stuff will happen to us, ya know?

Chibi Tasuki from ToaP: Darn! You're right! We're all gonna freakin' die!

Chibigreen: EEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!

Jealous Cast of The New Warriors: This isn't your fic, you &%*#@! ToaP people!  (Everyone kicks their ToaP counterparts way over the horizon…)

Chibigreen: Well, they do belong in their fic only, anyways… But, since I seem to be advertising my fics too much, I'll also advertise some others.  First off is: Juri the Oracle by CLAMPraven.  Juri is a very interesting, plot-twisty fic.  A very nice job!

And second, I recommend several fics by Purple Mouse, including Another Story and its sequel, Yet Another Story.  (P.S.  I fixed this error.  It used to accidentally recommend them from Ryuen.  Gomen, Ryuen and Purple Mouse!  I still like both the authors' writing, you know?  I didn't mean to mix up the recommendation!  Ryuen is  a very good writer…)

I'll recommend some other FY fics next time.  If you have a fic you want me to read, and possibly recommend, leave the name of that fic in a review.  Peace!  ^___^

Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out!


	9. The Servants of the Sapphire Dragon

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own FY.  That may be a good thing because I can't draw manga/anime at all, and FY wouldn't be popular if it weren't drawn well.  Wait… did I just say it's a _good_ thing that I don't own all the bishies in FY?  Wow, I really _am_ insane.

**Warnings:** Since I think that you have a pretty good idea of what's usually in this fic, expect that and angst…

**Some Author's Notes (in rant format): **I can't _believe_ that I haven't updated for so long.  Actually, I can, considering three facts: I had to move, I had to stay for awhile at my grandma's house while my stuff was being moved (and she doesn't _have_ a computer), and currently my computer is in a box somewhere in my garage and I had to borrow a computer.

I also want to thank the two people who sent e-mails to me that pretty much yelled that they were very annoyed with me not updating.  I want to thank them for yelling because it made me feel good to know that people _did_ like this fic enough to get mad that it wasn't being updated, and it sent my muses on an overdrive so that this chapter is being completely redone from what I have on my computer _and_ I _finally_ know what my endings going to be _and_ what three wishes Kotori is going to make when she summons Suzaku.  (One of my best friends, PrincessKitty-Chan, was _constantly_ complaining when I said I didn't have any idea how the fic was going to end.)

Chibi Rime: *looks slightly like an angry albino SD Hotohori with white hair* Get on with the fic already!

Chibigreen: Rime, you belong in War of the Angel's Land!  You're my _Digimon_ muse!

Chibi Rime:  I just promoted myself to "angst muse."  Now start writing!  *cracks a whip*

Chibigreen: Put that away!  *Rime smiles evilly while authoress begins typing while muttering about SD evil muses.*  And I don't own Digimon either, but Rime is _my_ muse.

~**Double-Edged Discord: The Servants of the Sapphire Dragon**~

_This…this isn't real!_ Tsunami thought despairingly as she felt herself slipping into darkness.  _Not Warren… Why does he have to be Miboshi?! _ {I…love…him…} Chiriko took over the body as his female counterpart slipped into a numb state of shock.  He looked at Miboshi/Warren in the eyes that he remembered far too well from a past life.

"Tsunami loves you, Warren," he said as he carefully ignored the pain in the girl's body.  "Why are you doing this to her?"

"I am Miboshi, not Warren," declared the seishi haughtily.

Chiriko shook his head.  The pain was too great for him to completely shut out, and beads of sweat began rolling down Tsunami's face.  "But you are inside Warren, just as she is inside me.  I wonder…what he… thinks of all of this…?"  He could not numb the pain in the body that was not his any longer, and he joined Tsunami in unconsciousness.

_Warren's POV_

"Stop it!" I screamed inside of my own mind.  Tears were streaming down my face as I saw my Tsunami hang in the air as blood slipped around the demons' teeth.  "Please!  Please don't kill her!"  I had had to watch all of this.  I was unable to move as little as one muscle, but even the dark monk hadn't been able to make my soul leave my mind although the rest of my body was not under my control.

[Why do you want to save he?  She is a Suzaku seishi, and a mortal enemy of the Seiryuu.  She stands in the way of our gaining of power!]  The thought came from Miboshi, and I could've rolled my eyes right then if I had control of my own body.  I felt like crying in sorrow over what Miboshi had done, but his thoughts did not make any sense!

"Your ideas are _useless_ as hell in this century, you idiotic monk from Ancient China!  Why would you want to have a lot of power in the first place?  Wouldn't it be nicer in life to just live, and even die, while having a good life surrounded by friends who are your friends because they care about _you_ and not because they care about your money or your power?"

There was a hesitation from Miboshi before he answered, [I want to rule over other people!  Having _friends_,] he emphasized the thought like it was foul, [is of no interest to me!]__

Time is running out for Tsunami, and under the pressure I thought struck me.  "Do you want to take a gamble?"  I had a feeling that a past life of mine would have the same interest in taking risks that I did.

[What kind of gamble?]  He did sound interested.

"It's as simple as this.  You help me keep Tsunami alive until her friends can rescue her, and then we'll see which of our ideas about friends is better.  If you find my idea the better one, then we stop fighting the seishi and instead live our life my way.  If I find your idea of life to be better than my own, then I will let you destroy _all_ of the Suzaku Seven without any resistance."

_Miboshi's POV_

The proposed gamble did seem fair enough, and if I converted him to my idea then our minds might be closer to merging.  Even I did not know how our soul had two separate minds, but the fact that he could fight me almost as much as Chiriko had irritated me to no end.

"Fine.  I will let you save her life."

_Warren's POV_

I felt relief as Miboshi said that and gave me complete control over our body and life force.  As I gathered up my life force to give Tsunami enough to live until the healing member of the Suzaku arrived, my relief was so great that I almost did not notice one extremely important fact.

Some of the relief came from Miboshi, and he did not even realize that he was thankful for the respite.

And that was when I wondered why an evil monk-mage would be relieved at saving the life of the person who had killed him.

_Third Person POV_

Warren used his power to banish the demons and to temporarily make the blood stop pouring from the wounds.  He tentatively sent his life force out to strengthen Tsunami's own, and that was enough to wake her up.  Carefully, he walked forward and knelt at her side as he controlled her fall to the ground.  She landed so softly that she didn't feel any extra pain from it, and she wondered what had happened.

A hand gently caressed her face.  "I'm sorry, Tsunami, but I'm only in control for a short amount of time.  I made a deal with him, and he agreed to let me save your life.  But he won't let me give you back your voice, so you're going to have to speak through Chiriko for a while."

Then he bent down even lower and gave her a deep kiss while strengthening her even more with his life force.

"I love you, and I hope that I never am forced to hurt you again," he whispered as he ended the kiss.  "Please believe in me…"  A few tears fell from his dark eyes and rolled down her face.

And then he teleported, and he was gone.  _Please believe in me…_

Tsunami had never thought that it might hurt so much to be loved.

[Maybe I don't mind you going out with a guy after all!] came Chiriko's slightly impressed thought.  [So _that's_ what being kissed feels like!  Wow!]

{Shut up,} she groaned.  {You just ruined an intense emotional moment.  Did you realize that?}

[Hmm, yes, but that was quite a kiss!]

{Chiriko, you must be gay.  But you're right; that was a very nice kiss.  It was my first kiss, too.}  The pain in her arm started again as Warren's spell that had been holding back the blood faded away.  {I think we're going to faint again,} she observed just before the blood loss sent her back into unconsciousness.

The barriers around the house crumbled as the other spell did, and Rayna came rushing into the house.  Hotohori's holy sword appeared in a glow of red light and fell into her hand, but she found it useless as the only thing in the room was the bleeding body of Tsunami.  She dropped the sword in shock and rushed towards the body.

Quickly she tore off strips of her shirt and used them to try to slow the flow of blood.  She also went for the phone and tried to dial, but it was dead and she didn't want to run out of the house in case whatever had tried to kill the Chiriko kid came back.  _Please God, Suzaku, anybody!  Let some help come soon!_

It was a matter of seconds before Tama led Ira to the door of the house.  Sensing his life force, she turned and ordered, "Mitsukake!  Heal Chiriko!  Please!"

He had no idea what she meant, but when he saw the bleeding teenager he knew that he had to try.  "How?"

"Try to make the symbol on your left palm glow," she explained hurriedly.  _Maybe he's never seen Fushigi Yuugi…_

Sweat beaded on his forehead as he concentrated on bringing up the power that he had felt the night before.

It was a few precious moments, and almost one moment too many, before his symbol finally started to glow.  By then all of the Suzaku Seven except for Lee had gathered in the room, and their wish for Tsunami to heal powered up Ira enough that Tsunami was brought back from the edge of death.

Tsunami woke up and smiled at everyone in the room.  She tried to say "hello" before she remembered that Miboshi had stolen her voice.

An over-emotional Hikaru didn't notice that her little sister had tried to speak.  She gave her a huge hug.  "Tsunami!  I'm so glad you're okay!  I'm so sorry that I wasn't here!"  She stopped her hug long enough to ask, "By the way, who the fuck did this to you so I can fuckin' kill them?"

She opened her mouth, and nothing came out.  Rayna answered for her, "It was Miboshi.  I saw her walk in here with someone who looked like Miboshi."

"Tsunami!  Why did you come in here with _Miboshi_?"

She held up her hand and began to sign with it.

"W…A…R…R…E…N," Hikaru said aloud as she watched the hand motions.  Her mouth dropped for a few seconds.  "Your fuckin' boyfriend is Miboshi?!  Did he take away your voice, too?!"

Tsunami nodded, but then she began to sign again.

"S…P…L…I…T," Hikaru translated, "P…E…R…S…O…N…A…L…I…T…Y.  What?  M…I…B…O…S…H…I.  Oh, so Miboshi is Warren's split personality?"  She nodded again.  "What the fuck is wrong with this world?!" wailed Hikaru.  But, exhausted, Tsunami had fallen asleep and could not even try to answer.

********

The huge mansion was mostly empty, except for three people.  There were no adults at all as parents of Warren were taking a cruise for the next month and had simply left their son at home alone while they relaxed as the boat toured the Caribbean Islands.

"Miboshi, why did you want to kill Chiriko?" asked a small child's voice.  Aimee was a pale, skinny child with long blonde hair.  She was also Nakago.

Miboshi refused to answer that, but his answer would have frightened the child because Miboshi did not like to communicate with other people.  Warren answered instead.  "He thinks that he needs to get revenge for Chiriko killing him in their past life.  I think that revenge is stupid," he added.

He did not want this Nakago to turn out like the last one.  He had found her because her mom was negligent and her father was a drunkard who was violent when he was drunk.  He had arrived just in time to keep her from killing them by accident, though they were probably in severe pain right now.  Miboshi had let his lesser demons have some fun.

For once, Warren hadn't minded.  There were many bruises on the young girl's body, and he detested parents like his own who hardly took care of their children.  To find a child who had not just been neglected, but also abused, roused a smoldering hatred inside of him.

Aimee nodded wisely.  "That's why you stopped me from killing Daddy and Mommy.  It was a bad thing," the five-year-old said simply.  She completely trusted Warren and Miboshi, and she also understood that they were two different people.  She understood things about human nature that would make her a good psychologist when she grew up.

The other person in the room was Tsuzu, the Priestess of Seiryuu.  But unlike Yui, the first Seiryuu no Miko, she had no wish to compete with the Suzaku no Miko.  She just wanted to help her country, which was also suffering from the severe droughts that Konan was going through.  The people in the country were desperate for food, and rebel factions from the army and peasants were beginning to attack both Kutou's capital and Konan.  Tsuzu believed that rivalry between the countries was pointless.

"Are you and Miboshi going out to find the other seishi now, Warren?  Should I come with you?" asked Tsuzu.  She also had long blonde hair, and that made Aimee see her as a big sister.  Apparently some of the Hin tribes had survived and went on to merge with Kutou after the government had been destroyed when the last summoning had taken place.  The current Empress of Kutou was of Hin descent, and Tsuzu was a princess.

"No.  The other seishi may be dangerous.  I don't want to risk you _or_ Aimee getting hurt."  _And Miboshi wants to try to get the others loyal to_ him, he thought silently.  But he would not allow it.  He _had_ watched Fushigi Yuugi, and he thought that if all of the seishi were loyal to Tsuzu, perhaps the summoning would end without her getting devoured.

Then again, Warren wasn't particularly worried about the other seishi being loyal to Miboshi instead of Tsuzu because, if he were any example, they had been given second chances.  Even Aimee had been given a second chance because he had been given the chance to rescue her.  And if the seishi were any amount kinder in this life, then they would not listen to Miboshi.

[Let me take control now,] ordered Miboshi.

{Fine, fine.  Don't get grouchy about it,} he replied testily.  Soon his legs were moving his body out the door, and once again he was only a spectator to what his body did.

_At least Miboshi isn't trying to kill anyone anymore.  I wonder what turned him so bitter in the first place?_

It was a question that, if he overheard it being thought, Miboshi did not try to answer.

~**TBC**~

No akugi for this chapter.  There's no part I really want to make fun of…

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant:** What rant?  Anyways, I hope that you liked this chapter.  This story _should_ be done by chapter twelve or fifteen, I think, and after that I'm going to write a Digimon story with the Digidestined and Tamers as the Suzaku and Seiryuu Seishi.  Or this story may have a sequel.  I'm not sure yet.

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail in a review.  If you're logged in but do _not_ want to be notified, mention that in the review.


	10. A Second Chance

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own FY.  That may be a good thing because I can't draw manga/anime at all, and FY wouldn't be popular if it weren't drawn well.  Wait… did I just say it's a _good_ thing that I don't own all the bishies in FY?  Wow, I really _am_ insane.

**Warnings:** There aren't any spoilers unless you've never heard of Ashitare…  And I'm not going to bother warning about stuff that already been seen in this fic.

~**Sadness and Hope: A Second Chance**~

A book seemed to glow slightly blue in the darkness of Warren's room.  {Just turn on the light already,} Warren complained to Miboshi.

[You have no sense of drama,] he said in return, but he did grudgingly switch on the light.  The Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho was nestled safely on the pillow of Warren's green- and brown-toned room.  Then Miboshi let Warren take control again, and he flopped down onto the bead and flipped the book open.

"Whatever you say.  But here's the page we're looking for," he said as he pointed to the book.  It was the current page where new information was still appearing.  He read it silently. _'Peter again had a strange dream.  The feral seishi known as Ashitare stood before him, trying to convince him to turn wild, to kill, and to eat human flesh.  Again, Peter was barely able to turn him away, but he did succeed.  He awoke from his nap in a cold sweat and decided to go and check on his orange trees to calm his nerves.'  _"What do you know?  Ashitare seems to be the typical Florida orange tree farmer."

[Then stop talking to yourself and let's go!]

"Remember our bet.  You have to try to be nice.  And I wasn't talking to myself; I was talking to you.  But that may be the same thing."

Miboshi grumbled.  [All right.  Where are we going?]

"To the nearest orange farms, of course."

[Can I drive?]

Warren paled at the thought of Miboshi driving.  The last time he had let his counterpart drive he had nearly run them into a palm tree.  {Not a chance.}

********

"You nearly died!  …What do you mean that you don't care?!  You don't have to be as suicidal as Chiriko was!"  Hikaru was keeping herself busy lecturing Tsunami as she rested in her room.  The walls were neatly covered with various anime pictures, and over the bed was a picture of Chiriko as a girl from the OVA omake.  _That,_ Hikaru decided, _is just ironic._  The room was done in a green and red plants theme that often had Hikaru complain that it was permanently decorated for Christmas.

[I almost feel insulted about that remark.  Can you protest that on my behalf?]

{She doesn't know you're here, but sure.}  Tsunami quickly wrote more sentences on the notepad that she was using to communicate.  Then she showed it to Hikaru.

As she read it, Hikaru seemed to grow angrier.  "Okay, so maybe it _was_ brave of him.  But it doesn't matter because you are going to stay in bed until you don't feel the least bit tired and we are going to be guarding you," she was referring to the rest of the Suzaku Seven, "so there!"  All of that was said very quickly.  Tsunami put down another note.  "I _didn't_ use my seishi power of speed to talk!"  Her little sister just gave her a look.  "I get the point! But _you_," she ordered, "better stay in bed!  I'll be back to check on you in a few minutes."  She left while mumbling, "I almost wish that my parents were here, but _no_, they're on a cruise!  Now _I_ have to take care of a little suicidal sister whose boyfriend tried to fuckin' kill her.  What a load of fuckin' fun!"  She shut the door to the room behind her.

Tsunami rolled her eyes, but in a few minutes no one was awake in her mind.  Outside of her room, however, Hikaru was anything but tired.

She stormed through the house full of nervous energy.  When she got to the kitchen, she raided her parents' alcohol collection and poured herself a glass of wine before sitting at the breakfast bar so that she faced the open living room.  She got three concerned glances from Ira, Rayna, and Henry, who had never seen her even slightly drunk, and extremely worried looks from Lee, Tahir, and Vidal.  Kara looked as if she was going to protest, but she decided against it.  Her little sister looked like she needed a drink.

Lee had arrived a few minutes earlier with Rei.  Kara and Henry had driven them here after getting a phone call from Hikaru.  Vidal had fixed the phone; it seemed that Miboshi had put another type of silencing spell on it, and Vidal had been able to cancel out that one.  But not even Ira's newfound healing powers could restore Tsunami's voice.

Hikaru continued to pour herself glasses of wine and drink them.  After she had had eight, she slammed the wineglass down.  "Damn it!" she roared.  Everyone in the room jumped.  "I can't believe Tsunami is takin' this so fuckin' easily!  That son-of-a-bitch bastard boyfriend of hers just tried to kill her, and all she can say is that it doesn't matter that she nearly fuckin' died!"  She poured herself another drink, but a slender hand reached around to grab it from her before it reached her lips.  She turned to stare with anger at Vidal, who carefully poured the drink down the sink behind the bar.  "What do ya think yer fuckin' doin'?" she demanded.

"Becoming an alcoholic won't help Tsunami," he reprimanded her gently.  And then he regretted it; it seemed like Hikaru was either an angry drunk or…

He realized the second type of drunk she was when she suddenly latched onto his shirt and began to cry…

…a very emotional drunk…

"Er… Hikaru?  What's wrong?" he asked nervously as she didn't let go.

She began to wail, "I'm such a horrible big sister!"

"No, you're-"

"Yes, I am!  I can't even protect my little sister!  WAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Vidal was starting to feel even more nervous as he futilely tried to calm her down.  "Hikaru-"

Her eyes were full of tears as she looked up at him.  "And I won't even face up to my responsibilities, so I try to get drunk instead!"

That was another type of drunken person showing.  It was a very truthful drunk.  "Hikaru, why don't you go sit down?" he asked politely before leading her to the only empty chair – which happened to be a loveseat – in the living room.

"I have an anger problem, and a drinking problem, and I can't even stop myself from fuckin' cursing," she sniffled as she sat down, but she wouldn't let go of him.

"Hikaru, can you…" He heard her breathing slow as she fell asleep. "…let go of me?"  She wasn't awake enough to hear, and her grip in her sleep was surprisingly strong.  He finally bowed to the inevitable and sat down next to her… only for her to shift her grip until she was glomping him around his waist.

Kara noticed that her ex-boyfriend was now an interesting shade of red.  "Enjoying yourself?" she teased.  His blush turned a shade darker.

"No!"  He didn't know which was worse; being hugged by his ex-girlfriend's little sister in her sleep, or being teased by his ex over the fact.

Tahir grinned.  "Just remember that she's a minor," he added helpfully.

"Da!"  Vidal gulped.  He didn't _think_ his feelings went that deep – after all, they had only met this morning.  But there was something, a memory that he had never experienced, being stirred up…

Lee joined in on the Vidal torture and got his mind away from the memory that he had _almost_ remembered.  "Just think about what a marriage with her will be like if she gets drunk at it," he told Vidal helpfully.

His blush, which had been fading, came back at more than full strength.  "Daa!"

"Hikaru isn't chasing Big Brother and Mr. Vidal around with a big metal fan this time," commented Rei innocently.

_Little sisters can be embarrassing,_ Lee decided.  He cleared his throat and hastily changed the subject.  "Isn't it strange that all of the Suzaku Warriors have gather in less then a day?"

Ira and Rayna, who had been informed of what had happened since everyone received his or her power, nodded in agreement with everybody else.  "But perhaps it is not," interjected Rayna.  "We certainly would not have found Ira, at least, if Tsunami had not been attacked."

"Not to mention how his _cat_ led him here.  That's one unusual kitty," the purple-haired seishi said.

The mage stopped trying to get out of Hikaru's grip long enough to say, "He's a very helpful cat, ya know?  Thanks to Tama and Ira, Tsunami is still alive."

"But," rumbled the doctor-in-training, "we do not know how to summon Suzaku."  It was amazing how far remembering a few moments of a past life could convince a person that gods did exist.

"We should sleep on it," interjected Tahir, "for a week or two.  We're still getting used to our powers right now," he said in reply to the looks he was receiving, "and I don't know about you, but my school starts back up the day after tomorrow, and I have a load of homework to complete."  There were reluctant nods of agreement around the room.  "Don't forget to watch out for Seiryuu Seishi, but remember that they might not be evil in this life."

Again heads nodded, and the meeting broke up as everyone left the room.  Only two people remained.  One was Hikaru, who was now snuggling closer to Vidal in her sleep.  The other was Vidal, and nothing he tried – not even turning SD – helped him to escape the death grip that Hikaru had on him.

********

A sporty black car pulled up to an orange farm with a slightly worn down fence.  Warren slowly got out, and he looked towards a spot further in the grove.  {Are you sure that Ashitare is in there?}

[Very.  I can sense his life force easily.]

{Okay.  You can take over for now,} Warren said as he ceded control over to Miboshi.  The reincarnated dark mage scaled the fence and walked further into the grove.  He heard some crackling behind him, and a voice growled in a thick Southern accent, "Who are you, and why are you here?"

He turned and saw the person who must have been Ashitare.  He had the same bluish-gray hair and yellow eyes, but his skin was no longer the unhealthy gray that it had been.  He was twenty or more years younger than Ashitare had been, his features were kinder, and there were no scars on his arms.  Miboshi smiled with just a touch of cruelty.  "Hello, Ashitare."

Peter started in surprise at hearing that name.  "I don't know who you're talking about," he lied.  "My names Peter."

"That's right; it _is_, at least in this life.  You seem to remember some about Ashitare and the other Seiryuu Seven.  How did you feel about Miboshi?"

This time, Peter did not pretend to misunderstand.  "_Ashitare_ hated his guts for being so friendly with Nakago.  I couldn't care less."

"What if I said that the Priestess of Seiryuu had reappeared and it was our duty to help her summon Seiryuu?"

"I'd say," Peter emphasized each word, "that I won't have a thing to do with it."  He scratched at a forming beard on his chin.  "Especially if it has to do with fighting the Suzaku Seven."

"Why not?"

The farmer just smiled and said, "Because I had a strangely long dream one night a few weeks ago, not long after some blue light appeared and went into me.  I know all of Ashitare's life, and I actually feel sorry for him.  Sure, he was evil and everything; I mean, he liked to _eat_ people, for God's sake.  But he might of not turned out too bad if he had ever been treated better, but he wasn't, just 'cause he was dumb.  Now me," he said while pointing to his head, "I'm not the sharpest thing in the world, either.  But I had a chance at education, and though I work pretty hard to just pass my courses, I've had support along the way.  My parents treated me nice, and I went into agriculture and loved it.  Now I have my own orange grove and a small farm that I use to support myself, and I do odd jobs so that I can finish earning my degree.  I worked pretty hard for my life, and I'm not going to let a couple of memories make me lose all of that.  I don't want to be Ashitare."

Miboshi's jaw was hanging slightly open.  He hadn't expected the man to be even half as educated as he was, and he certainly hadn't expected to be turned down so firmly.  On the other hand, Warren felt like congratulating the orange grower.  He had went through the same thing two weeks ago when his complete set of Fushigi Yuugi manga had turned into the Seiryuu version of the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho (which focused on Yui instead of Miaka).  But instead of being able to fight off the memories, his hand turned into Miboshi and become a split personality.  Tsunami had been safe enough around him – until Miboshi had discovered that she was Chiriko.  His hatred for her was unbelievable.

Then the dark monk recovered.  "I don't care whether you want to support us or _not_.  I can make you obey me, even if I have to have you possessed by a demon for it to work!"  The trick had been what had almost killed Tsunami at the school, but when Chiriko fully awakened because of Tsunami's prayer, Warren had been able to fight back and stop the demons from killing her.

Now Miboshi's counterpart reminded him, {Not allowed, remember?  You have to win their support in another manner.  Here, let me try.}  The control of his body was slowly transferred back to him.  He smiled friendlily at Peter.  "Don't listen to Miboshi," Warren told him.  "He's just grumpy because he can't have full control of my body."  The ex-werewolf looked dumbfounded.  "I have a split personality syndrome because I fully regained my power.  Call me Warren, and the other guy with the weird eyes is Miboshi."

"How can you live with that?" the seishi wondered.

"It's hard," he said seriously, "but we get along fairly well.  We share time we're controlling the body so that we don't go crazy."

"Do you still want me to join the Seiryuu Seven?"

He laughed.  "Of course!  It's our duty as the Seiryuu Seishi to summon Seiryuu, and we might as well work together and complete our duty.  But I do _not_ believe that we should fight the Suzaku Seishi, unlike Miboshi.  It does not matter if they do or not, because them, being who they are, will only do something that is good for others.  And I would not _want_ to fight the Suzaku because my girlfriend is Chiriko."  He took out his personal business card that he was glad – for once – that his mother had made him get.  "Here's my phone number and address.  If you feel like meeting some other members of the Seiryuu Seven, come by anytime on Saturday."

A voice called out from the direction of Peter's house.  "Peter, honey!  I made you some lemonade!"

"Coming, Mom!" Peter called as he turned to go to his house.  When he looked back at where Miboshi/Warren had been, the singular pair had already disappeared.  A car could be heard starting and driving off.

"Peter!" came the call again.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" called one of the most disliked members of any of the seishi as he went off to get a glass of lemonade from his mother before returning to his work.

**~TBC~**

~**Akugi**~

Narrator: Peter again had a strange dream… *The scene shows a sleeping SD Ashitare in a farmer's outfit snoozing with the dream in a bubble above his head.  In the dream, Peter is happily plowing away in his fields.*

Nyan-Nyans: *a troop of them march across the dream* Fix, fix!

Peter: *drops his plow and runs away screaming* No, I don't wanna be fixed!  Please don't let them do it!

Narrator: …And Peter showed perfectly how a dog would react to the word "fix" if they knew what it could mean for them… and if they could talk back.

~**Akugi #2**~

Peter: I don't want to be Ashitare.

Warren: What do you want?

Peter: *sticks fake plastic fangs into his mouth* I vant to suck your blood!

Nyan-Nyan #2: *drops in while carrying a huge mallet, which bonks Peter on the head* Bad puppy!  You're a werewolf, not a blood sucking undead!

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant:** I updated pretty quickly this time, for me at least.  I guess this is my way of celebrating my computer being unpacked.  Ah, well… I liked the little bit at the end where we found out that Peter's still living with his mommy, who makes him lemonade when he works hard.  Aw!  It's so cute!  *glomps all three of her muses*

Heehee, I already had Chibi Chiriko and Chibi Rime as muses.  Now, a Nyan-Nyan has joined. *points towards a Nyan-Nyan dressed completely in green* Her name's Chibi Nyo.

Nyo: Hello!  Edit, edit!  Fix, fix!  Romance!

Chibigreen: Yep, that's what Nyo does.  She processes the ideas Chiriko and Rime give me, and she adds in the romance.

Nyo: ^__^ *a bow appears in her hand, and its arrow is tipped with a red heart* Nyo!

Chibigreen: She used that on Vidal and Hikaru when they weren't going to cooperate with the romance scene.  ^___^  Now that I have three muses, this story might be a bit longer then I thought…

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail in a review.  If you're logged in but do _not_ want to be notified, mention that in the review.

**CHIBIGREEN'S MUSES LIVE OFF OF REVIEWS!**  Make sure that they're healthy enough to make Chibigreen write by reviewing!


	11. Demon

**Disclaimer:** I don't own FY.  Simple, ne?

**Warnings:** I don't think I need these anymore, so these are the last warnings: Hikaru's bad mouth and mild spoilers for episode 44.

**Note:** My penname has been changed from "Chibigreenwizardmon" to "Chibigreen Tanuki."

~**Venting Emotions: Demon**~

Tsunami woke up suddenly from a nightmare about Chiriko's death.  He was very silent as she breathed deeply to ease her fears.  _{Chiriko?}_

_[Yes?]_

_{Do you regret it?  Having to die like that, I mean?}_

She could feel him contemplating it.  _[I regret,]_ he replied, _[that I had to die so young.  But I did not regret dying as I did.  Instead, I am glad that I was able to protect my friends.  It was painful, yes, and dreaming about it is… fairly discomforting.  However, if I had to do it again, I would.]_

_{You're a brave person, Chiriko-chan.}  But I'm not…_

_[And so are you,]_ Chiriko retorted as he felt her guilt.  "You're just like me," he told her aloud before realizing that he was now in control of the body.  _[I'm sorry; I didn't mean to do that!]_

{Don't worry!  You should be in control for now because I can't speak, and, frankly, I want to rest.  I'll make sure to keep an eye on you, so that you don't mess up.  And… try to speak in a higher voice, so that you sound more like me.}

With some relief, Chiriko took full control of the body.  _True, it is strange to be a girl, but not doing anything makes me feel confined!_  Being the one guiding the body made him feel like he was stretching after a very long nap.

He slid out of the bed and quietly walked out of the room.  The new Tasuki was like the old Tasuki, but extremely overprotective.  Hikaru would be very angry if she found Tsunami out of bed.

When he reached the living room, he noticed that Hikaru was asleep, and a super-deformed Vidal was trapped in her arms.  _[Should I inquire as to what happened?]_

_{Don't speak yet.  It would confuse them, and Hikaru would probably get worried if she knew that I had a split personality.}_

_[What should I do, then?]_  He regarded the trapped Vidal curiously.

She thought it over.  _{Go back to our room.  They can sort it out.  And besides,}_ she thought to him as he followed her advice, _{I think that they make a cute couple.}_

He stumbled, but was able to maintain his balance.  The idea of Tasuki and Chichiri as a couple had never occurred to him.  _I don't_ think _that they were attracted to each other in Konan… but, then again, Chichiri_ was _always good at hiding his feelings.  However, Tasuki was not, and I do not think that he ever showed attraction to Chichiri… right?_  Thinking that way was giving him a headache, so he quietly slipped back into his room and asked Tsunami to give him lessons in acting like her.

*******

Hikaru's eyes opened, and she groaned as painfully bright light hit her eyes.  She knew that she had drunk too much if her headache was that bad.  She shifted slightly in the seat and felt a warm body next to her.  Again, she cracked an eye open, only to see that Vidal was trapped in her arms.  She lifted back a hand.

"Ya fucking pervert!"

A smack resounded through the room as the redhead's fist connected with the mage's face.  Hikaru sat up angrily and raised her fist again.

Vidal rolled off the loveseat and got away from Hikaru.  "Hikaru, I didn't do anything!" he said desperately as she pulled out her infamous tessen.  "You're the one who grabbed me!"

She seemed to grow larger as her flaming temper became almost tangible.  "Ya let me let ya take advantage of me?"

"No, you know?  I didn't do anything!"  The tessen was pulled back.  "Really!  I just sat there because I couldn't get away!  You were holding me too tightly, you know?!"

Hikaru primly dropped the tessen from its "attack" position.  "Oh.  Okay."  Then she covered her ears.  "Ooh, all this noise is giving me a headache," she moaned.

Nervously, Vidal backed up.  "You were making most of it, you know," he mentioned.  She glared at him.  "Hey, calm down, calm down.  I have to go now and do some homework, and everyone else has already left except for Kotori and Tsunami, but I think that both of them are asleep now.  Goodbye."

"I guess I'll call you sometime.  'Bye," she said grudgingly.

Fighting a unexpected urge to kiss her, Vidal turned and left.

Hikaru watched him go, and when the door closed, she abruptly felt lonely.  _Now, that's just fuckin' silly.  Though I feel that somethin' like this happened_ sometime _before this, I know that it hasn't.  Is this somethin' that Fushigi Yuugi didn't show?_

***_Two days later…_***

"Yo, Tsunami!" Chiriko turned to wave at one of Tsunami's fellow anime addicts.  Because of Tsunami, he knew that the young man's name was Derrick, the twin brother of Erick.  The two were so alike that she couldn't tell them apart, but only Derrick would say "yo."  They had been absent for the past three days because of the flu.

As usual, Tsunami was meeting with her friends outside the large school library, which was a large building, completely separated from the main body of the school.  Today, only Derrick and Erick would be coming because their other friends, including Hikaru, had homework to do.

"Hi!" Chiriko called back cheerfully.  He had managed to get the knack of imitating Tsunami's voice perfectly, thanks largely to the fact that he was in _her_ body.  Even Hikaru had been fooled, and he had made up some excuse as to why Tsunami had gotten her voice back.

"Watch any new anime while we were gone?"

"No.  I was busy this weekend."  _[Am I doing well?]_

_{Yes.  Don't worry so much.}_

"That's too bad.  We weren't able to do anything, either, but Dad got us the last tape of Evangelion."

"Was it any good?"

Erick answered with a negative shake of his head.  "Yes and no.  It was very depressing, but it was great.  But, you know, that wasn't the strangest part of our weekend.  On Friday night, just after we got the flu and couldn't come over to your house, we had some strange dreams."

Next, Derrick began the story.  "We didn't tell you this before, but two weeks before that, we had a dream that both of us got hit by strange blue lights.  Then the signs of Suboshi and Amiboshi began to glow on us.  We didn't see anything weird about that 'cause we had shared dreams and thoughts before that.  All because of our twin ESP."

A chill ran down Chiriko's back.

"Then, this Friday," Erick continued in place of his brother, "we had dreams that we actually _were_ Suboshi and Amiboshi.  We have memories of their lives and everything.  Does that make any sense to you?"

Chiriko handed control over to Tsunami.  She nodded and lifted up the hem of long skirt.  Shining above her sandal's strap was Chiriko's symbol.  As she let the edge fall cover it again, Chiriko took over control again.  "It makes sense because I'm Chiriko."

The twins were staring at her.  "Whoa, Tsunami," said Derrick, "When did that happen?"

"Friday.  The rest of the Suzaku Seven have already gathered, and Miboshi is gathering the Seiryuu."  He hesitated slightly before continuing, "He's been trying to kill me."

"What?!  Does Warren know about this?"  Erick was concerned over his friend's health.

"He's been absent the last couple of days…"

"But have you told him?"

"No, but he knows…" He stiffened as a hand was set on his shoulder.

"Of course I know," Warren/Miboshi said sweetly.  The grip on his shoulder grew harder, and Chiriko gritted his teeth to keep from crying out in pain.  "In fact, I'm wondering how poor Tsunami got her voice back… after I took it away!"

Chiriko smashed Warren's hand off of his shoulder and turned to glare at Warren.  "I'm not Tsunami," he said in his normal voice.  "I'm Chiriko, and I'm speaking for her… Miboshi.  So leave both of us alone."

"I don't want to hurt you," Warren said sadly as he spoke for himself.  "Miboshi does, and I can't really stop him."

Erick and Derrick were staring at the two of them.  "Y-you can't be serious!" Erick said desperately.  "This is all just a joke, right?"

On the other hand, Derrick's reaction was one of anger.  "I don't believe you!  You bastard, how could you try to hurt Tsunami?"  He clenched his fist.  "You try to hurt her again, and I'll see if I can still use Meteor Balls!"

A sneer came onto Warren's face as Miboshi said, "Idiots.  Suboshi and Amiboshi were always gullible idiots.  If you tried to harm me, my demons would destroy your bodies – or perhaps just take them over."

"You'd never be able to summon Seiryuu then," Chiriko said quietly.

Warren told Miboshi, _{Remember our bet.}_

_[Fine.]_  "The soft-hearted imbecile who is my reincarnation made a deal with me, so I am going to restore Tsunami's voice now."  He motioned with his fingers, and a blue light came out of Tsunami's body and went into Miboshi.  _If she badmouths me, I will take great pleasure in_ painfully _extracting her voice again._

Blinking, Tsunami opened her mouth to speak.  "Thank you, Miboshi."

_What?  She's thanking me?  Why?_  "It's just a simple spell," he said arrogantly instead of asking.

"It may be, but you did not have to do it, even if you did have a deal with Warren.  So, thank you."

"You may be thanking me, but what does Chiriko think?  Is _he_ grateful?"

Chiriko once again controlled the body.  "Of course not.  In this life, you try to kill my reincarnation and me.  In another life, you possessed me and I had to kill myself to protect my friends.  You are a demon.  You do not control them; you are _one_ of them."

The cold words, coming from the kind and unassuming Chiriko, struck at Miboshi's mind.  _"I have to kill myself to protect my friends.  You are a demon.  You do not control them; you are _one_ of them."  He's said that before… he's said that before… NO!_  He fell to his knees, clutching his head in pain.  "You've said that before.  When?  Why?  I just don't know…  I JUST DON'T KNOW!" And with that shout, both Warren and Miboshi passed out.  Their unconscious body slumped to the ground, and Tsunami barely caught it in time to keep his head from hitting the pavement.

**~TBC**~

~**Akugi**~

Hikaru: *in her sleep* Fried…pea…cock… *begins to chew on Vidal's hair* Yum… Tastes like f*ckin' chicken…

SD Vidal: My hair gel tastes like chicken?!

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant:** A note: The Genbu seishi and the Byakko seishi will _not_ be appearing in this fic.  I mean, I think Tatara is the coolest, and the other seishi are pretty neat, too, but there's just not room in this fic for more people.  Sorry.

Sorry for not updating in a while, but a weeklong vacation was suddenly extended without me being notified first.  Anyway, I have _two _new muses.  Here's their introduction…

Chibigreen:  I got two new muses!  I think that they're replacing Chiriko-san.

Chiriko: Thank Suzaku!  Now I will not be tortured as frequently.

Chibigreen:  You wish.  I decided to keep you.  Back to the muse bit…

Rime: I'm not getting replaced, am I?

Chibigreen: No, you're too cool.  I _can_ create good characters.  I _can_ create good characters.  *A doorbell rings, and then a cardboard box drops on the floor.  In a glow of white light, it opens magically to reveal…*

Rime: An egg.  Your new muse is an _egg_?  It's half my height, but an _egg_?

Chibigreen: Shh.  It hasn't hatched yet.  *As she speaks, the egg cracks open.*

Rime: It's… it's…

Nyo: Kawaii, kawaii!

Chibigreen: Exactly, Nyo! *Two baby dragons are sitting in the box.  One is a black dragon with green eyes, and the other is a white dragon with blue eyes.*

Rime: There's _two_ of them?!  They're… too… cute… for an angst muse to stand!

Chibigreen: Meet Crystal, the black one, and Snow, the white one.  They're twin, female baby dragon muses.

Rime: *Falls to the floor, twitching.*

Snow: *Chirps.*

Crystal: *Growls.*

Chibigreen: I agree, Snow.  He's weird.  And Crystal: No, you _cannot_ bite the comatose angst muse.

**This story is going to have a side story for Miboshi.  It's called Death's Angel.**

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail in a review.

**CHIBIGREEN'S MUSES LIVE OFF OF REVIEWS!**  But is that a good thing, or a bad…?


	12. Forsaken Memories

**Disclaimer:** I don't own FY.

~**A Half Empty Glass: Forsaken Memories**~****

Rayna stood in front of Hikaru and Tsunami's house.  A few minutes ago, Hikaru had called her and asked her to come over.  She'd had a worried tone to her voice, but she'd also said that it wasn't urgent.  It had taken some time for Rayna to get ready to leave and then drive across town, so now she was concerned over what had happened.  Today was Saturday, and it had been this time last week that she had met up with the others for the first time.

She heard a door slam behind her.  "Hello, Rayna," said a cheerful voice.  She turned to see that Tahir had just driven up to the house, too.  "Do you have any idea what's up?"

She shook her head.  "No, but I think that it is important.  Maybe something has come up about the summoning?"

"Nah, I don't think it was that," he replied as he leaned against his blue car.  "It's just a feeling I have, but I believe that it has something to do with Tsunami.  After all, one of the Seiryuu is her boyfriend."

"If it had to do with Tsunami," Rayna said dryly, "then she wouldn't have called us and told us that it wasn't an emergency."

"That's true," Tahir said.  He straightened up and began to walk to the front door.  "Let's go in." Rayna followed him into the house.

They found Hikaru sitting with the other seishi in the living room.  A few were missing: Tsunami, Kotori, Lee, and Ira.  "What's up?" said Tahir.

Hikaru had dark circles under her eyes.  "I'm not sure yet.  It has something to do with Miboshi, but this is all _really_ strange.

"On Wednesday, Tsunami and I were at school.  She'd somehow been able to talk since late Sunday, so there weren't any problems with that.  Th' trouble started when her friends Derrick and Erick went back ta school.  They'd been sick for th' past few days.  I wasn't there when all of this started, but Tsunami told me that this is what happened.

"Turns out that Derrick's Suboshi an' Erick's Amiboshi.  Yeah, my sis seems to 'ave really bad luck when it comes ta who she's friend with.  Anyway, they weren't th' problem, as they didn't give a rat's ass about who they were.  Then Miboshi – Warren – comes back ta school for the firs' time in days, an' then he starts causin' trouble.  Derrick began ta threaten Miboshi by sayin' that if he did something to Tsunami, Miboshi would be havin' some Ryuuseisui for breakfast.  That's Suboshi's weapon, if ya didn't know, an' I'm sure that if he doesn't 'ave 'em, he'll find 'em just like I found my tessen.

"Then, Miboshi did somethin' strange.  Tsunami said that he gave her back her voice, but since she had been talkin' for a few days I dunno what she means.  She said that she told off Miboshi about somethin', and then he started grabbin' his head like he had an headache.  Whatever.  What's important is that then he fainted.

"Th' school nurse checked him out and said that it looked like he had fainted from exhaustion.  She an' Tsunami asked me to drive him home after school ended 'cause the school couldn't reach his parents, so I did.  Tsunami went along, too, and when we got to his mansion – did I mention that he's filthy rich? – I was just plannin' to drop him off an' leave.  But Tsunami wants to play nurse to her boyfriend, so I look around the mansion 'cause I'm so bored.  And then I run into two people who I was pretty damn surprised to see.

"There was this five-year-old chibi Nakago female.  It sounds like something out of a fangirl's weird imaginings or somethin', but there she was.  I also saw the priestess of Seiryuu.  Her name's Tsuzu or somethin' like that, and it turns out that she's been a friend of Kotori's for years.

"So for the past few days, Tsunami's been watching Warren and Kotori's been hangin' out with Tsuzu.  Lee's over there to make sure that nothing bad happens, and Ira's over there incase something does happen.

"Something _is_ happenin' to Warren, but I'm not sure what it is.  Th' last time I saw him, he was floating two feet above his bed and glowin' blue.  Only Tsunami could enter the room without getting pushed out again by whatever power is in there, not even Aimee, the chibi Nakago.  She's much nicer than Nakago was, and she seems ta think of Miboshi as an older brother or a favorite uncle.

"I don't know what to do, except for gathering us all in one place.  I'm really worried that somethin' bad's gonna happen."

Vidal shook his head sadly.  "I don't think that there is anything we can do, Hikaru.  We'll just have to wait and see what happens.  Tsunami's not a little girl; she can take care of herself, especially when she has friends around to help."

Hikaru sighed.  "I was afraid that you were gonna say that.  I just don't like it is all…"

Tahir looked through the glass sliding doors to the bright day outside.  "Instead of worrying, why don't we have a pool party?"

"What?  Why now?" asked Hikaru.

"Just think of it: a bright day, hot weather, and you guys have a good pool.  Let's relax and take it easy for the day."

Rayna nodded in agreement.  "That's a good idea."  She smiled at Tahir.  "I'll go and get my bathing suit and some snacks," she said as she headed out the door.  "Ciao."

Tahir also got up.  "If the pool party idea's up, I'd better go get my swimming trunks."

"I thought that you would wear Speedos to impress other guys," Hikaru teased.  Casually, Tahir flung a newspaper at her head.  She ducked and stuck her tongue out at him as he walked out the door.  She turned to Vidal.  "Hey, aren't you going to get your swimsuit?"

"I guess, you know, but is it really the time to be having fun?"

She threw the newspaper at his head and grinned as he caught it.  "Of course not, Chiri, but if we don't 'ave fun now, when are we gonna get a chance?"

"I guess you're right.  We might as well enjoy life while we can…"

*******

"Tsuzu, I don't want to have to fight with you," Kotori told her friend as they sat around the dining table.  Everyone except Tsunami had come down for a discussion.

The Seiryuu no Miko smiled sympathetically.  "I don't think that we _have_ to fight if we don't want to.  Seiryuu and Suzaku have traditionally been enemies, but we could end that."

"I hope so," Kotori sighed.

"If Miboshi keeps on attacking us, we'll have to keep on fighting back," Lee reminded them as he sipped at lemonade, "even if we don't want to."

Aimee smiled.  "We can be friends, right?"

She reminded him of Rei.  "Yeah… I guess that you're right."

"I hope that everyone else feels the same way," said Tsuzu.  "I think that Miboshi will never stop trying to defeat you, unless Warren can somehow change his mind."

"Perhaps Miboshi will change his own mind," Ira said into the pause that followed.

"I hope you're right…"

*******

Warren was lost in the memories of Miboshi.  He felt that time was paused for him, or at least for his body, as his counterpart remembered things that he hadn't for at least a lifetime.

_"You two are soul mates," said the old wise woman._

The memory changed.  _The sword pierced through the air and Hane's heart…  A slime-covered, scaly tentacle rose out of the water.  The Kutou soldier turned around and saw it too late as it wrapped around him and crushed him._

Another flash.  _"Tenkou-sama wishes to see you, Miboshi-san."  …No one here calls me by my real name._

Flash.  _"I have no wish to harm anyone."_

His past… both of their past, in another life, unfolded before them.  And Warren learned more about Miboshi than he had even known.

Distantly, he could sense Tsunami standing watch over his frozen body.  _Just wait a bit longer, Tsunami,_ Warren thought.  _I won't leave you alone._

*******

Tsunami looked worriedly on at the body of Warren.  It looked as if time had stopped within the glowing blue bubble that surrounded his body.  Somehow he looked like he was without hope.

_He was always slightly pessimistic… I'm so worried about him._  {Chiriko, do you have any idea what's happening to him?}

[No.  No, I don't.  I wish I did.  It's like something I said made him remember a long forgotten memory]

"We told him," Tsunami said aloud, "or you told him, 'You are a demon.'  Did that have something to do with it?"

[Maybe…  I have told him that once before.  It was when he had possessed me.  As I… ended the fight, I told him that he was a demon using the same words that I did back at the school.  'You are a demon.  You do not control them; you are _one_ of them.'  Maybe he couldn't remember any of that, but before Miboshi died…]

"What happened?"

Chiriko paused uncertainly.  [The memories are blurry, but… I believe that he apologized to me, and then thanked me for killing him…]

Her eyes noticed blue lightning sparking around Warren's body.  "If that's true, Chiriko, then something is more wrong with Miboshi then we know."

The air crackled as the lightning flashed across the sapphire orb.

~**TBC**~

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant: **Whew, that's done. So, next chapter, you'll have a pool party with some of the seishi.  Can you say Vidal/Hikaru and Rayna/Tahir romance?  You can?  Goooood…

A big thanks to all readers of this fic who then went and read** _Death's Angel_**.  I was surprised that _anyone_ would read a story about Miboshi (even if it is a side story to this story).  Heck, I was surprised that I even started to write it.  I think that I was feeling sorry for Miboshi at the time… &%@$!  Why did I make Warren nice?  Why?!  I hate Miboshi! *mumbling* Sucky person who went and got Chiriko killed…

Oh, and I decided to start replying to reviews.  Heck, why not?  These are for reviews after 08/21/02.

**Astral Mikos** – Thanks for reviewing.  ^___^  Don't worry, I plan to continue writing this.

**Flying heart** – Thanks for putting this on your Favorite Stories list.  *gets an ego boost*  I'm also glad that some people actually _do_ like the Miboshi side story.  ^___^

**CLAMPraven** – You're right, Irasa would sound good as a name for Soi's reincarnation… But, since I'll feel like I'm purposely copying, I'm not going to use it.  It would confuse all the readers of **_'Juri' – from girl to oracle_** anyhow.

**SilvaraWilde** – Thanks for the compliment.  ^___^ Before I wrote this, I didn't think I could write humorous stories.  Most came out dark and depressing, like my Miboshi side story.

**Sansele** – "Finally uploaded,' you say?  Yep, I do tend to procrastinate on my stories, but this is the hardest story for me to write.  And I'm glad that you like the Tas/Chiri pairing that I'm writing.  ^___^

**Melonydevil** – Derrick is Suboshi, Erick is Amiboshi.  And dragon muses are cute, but uncontrollable.  One day they just pop up in your head and say (or growl, chirp, whistle, etc.), "Hello!  I'm your muse now!  (And you can't get rid of me!  Bwahaha.)"  ^___^

**Ryuen** – Oops, ah, I got the authors mixed up!  *bangs head against the wall*  Anyway, I fixed it. ^___^ I do like **_Even Geniuses Get the Blues_**, **_Risen_**,**_ Breathing_**, and a whole slew of your other fics.**__**

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail in a review and I'll e-mail you when I update.


	13. To Forgive

**Disclaimer:** I don't own FY.

**Note:** You might not be able to understand some parts of this chapter if you've read my other fic (a side story to this), Death's Angel.

~**Realization of Truth: To Forgive…**~****

The glow around Warren dimmed as he lowered back onto his bed.  Tsunami looked at him in surprise as he slowly sat up.  His feet dangled off the bed.

"Hi, Tsu-chan," he said casually.  "Thanks for waiting around for so long."

Hesitantly, she replied, "Really, it wasn't…a problem.  I wanted to make sure that you were all right…"

"Both sides of me?"  In a split second, Miboshi was again in possession of the body, but his eyes no longer looked so evil.  He stepped forward, but Tsunami held her position.  She wasn't sure if she could trust Miboshi or not yet.

He took another step forward, and Tsunami was surprised to find herself being _hugged_ by Miboshi.  "I'm sorry for not remembering all of my past, Chiriko, Tsunami…" In his mind, he saw a person who reminded him of both Tsunami and Chiriko so much because they were all one and the same.  _Hane…_ "I only knew the bitter memories, and not any of the happy ones."

Chiriko spoke, "It is partly my fault, Miboshi.  I did not remember the moments before our deaths, either, and so I did not realize that you were not your true self."

With an understanding nod, Miboshi stopped hugging her and took a step back.  "There is one thing that I did not tell you about, Chiriko… Let me tell you the story of my life…"

_…Story told in _Death's Angel_…_

Chiriko was crying by the end of the story.  "So… that is the reason I was able to retain your soul in my body," he whispered quietly.  They were sitting on the bed, together, as the story had taken over half an hour to tell.

"Yes.  I know I can never be forgiven for what I have done, but-"

The younger seishi reached out and clasped Miboshi's hands.  "I forgive you, and so does Tsunami.  It is not your fault that it happened as it did."

Surprise was alight in Miboshi's eyes.  "T-thank you…" On the back of his neck, his symbol began to glow.  His eyes closed as if in pain or unbound joy, he rubbed the symbol on the back of his neck.  Perhaps it was both feelings mixed.  "It hasn't done that for more than a lifetime.  It's a strange sensation, right, Chiriko?"

"Yes, it most certainly is."  _[This friendly Miboshi is _strange_.  I'm not accustomed to him behaving amicably.]_

_{He seems sad.  I think that he needs a hug,}_ observed Tsunami.

_[I'm_ not _going to hug him.  You wouldn't even of suggested that if he didn't look more like Warren now.]_

_{That's exactly it,}_ she pointed out.  _{He doesn't look evil anymore.}_

_[I suppose I could,]_ he agreed, _[but I won't.  It would be too peculiar.  However, I am worried about him.]_

_{Why don't you ask him what's wrong?}_

_[I can do that,]_ he acquiesced.  He turned towards Miboshi uncertainly with a concerned light in his eyes.  "Miboshi…"

Abruptly, Miboshi got up and opened the door to the room.  "I think that we'd better go downstairs," he said as he stepped out.

Chiriko was left sitting alone on the bed, feeling sad and slightly crushed in a way that he'd never felt before.

Miboshi breathed deeply as he leaned against the wall outside his reincarnation's room.  The said person was loudly berating him.

_{What did you do_ that _for?  You really upset her.}_

_[Him,]_ he replied absently.

_{It's a girl's body, so it doesn't matter!  The point is that he was just trying to be nice!}_ yelled Warren.

Miboshi shook his head.  _[It doesn't matter.  I don't deserve anything from Chiriko.  He's too… innocent, and I will taint his purity.]_  He retired back into his part of the mind and left Warren to take over.

_My preincarnation is an idiot._  Warren shook his head over the strangeness of his formerly evil side.  _He still needs time to heal, but anyone with half a mind, or two minds, could tell that either Chiriko_ does_ like Miboshi, or Chiriko at least wants to help him._

"Hard-headed counterpart?" asked a soft, familiar voice.

He nodded in her direction.  "Yes.  Miboshi's just afraid of hurting Chiriko, I think…" He couldn't quite meet her eyes.  "Tsu-chan, I'm-"

A finger on his lips silenced him.  "Shh.  It's not your fault, and it's not Miboshi's fault.  It was fate and coincidence mixed together in a negative combination, but now everything is beginning to heal.  Life always has it's ups and downs.  If you can keep hoping in the darkness, you can usually find light."

He gently clasped her hand and shifted it so that he could speak again. "Miboshi doesn't think he deserves the light."  'I don't deserve it, either,' was left unspoken, but it seemed to float in the air for all to read.

"Both of you deserve it," she declared firmly.  "I will never think of it any other way."

"I know," he said with a gentle grin.  Her persistence was one of the characteristics that Warren admired in Tsunami.  He raised her hand to his lips and softly kissed it.  She blushed faintly, but it faded as she smiled.  Both of them knew that everything was beginning to mend.

"We'd better go tell the others that you're okay," she reminded him when her blush was completely gone.  "Aimee was worried about you _and_ Miboshi."

"Then, let's go."  They didn't let go of each other's hand.  It felt like it always should have been that way.

When they got to the dining room where the others were waiting, there was the squeal of a chair being pushed over tiles and the pattering of small feet on the floor.  "Warren!  You're up!" Aimee shouted happily as she glomped his leg.  "You're alright!"

"I'm better than I have been in a while," he replied seriously.  He glanced at Tsunami.  "Tsu-chan, maybe you should call your sister and tell her that you're fine?"  She nodded and reluctantly let go of his hand.  To everyone else, he said, "I'm sorry for causing you to worry.  Miboshi and I just had to recover some forgotten memories, and it took a lot out of us."

"So what you're saying is…?" asked Tsuzu after a moment's silence.

"Miboshi's not a bad person after all?" asked Hikaru disbelievingly.  She had been getting some water guns out when Tsunami had called.

"That's right," said Tsunami.  "He's very polite now that he remembers everything.  He even apologized for being like he was."

"Uh-huh.  So… I'm plannin' t' have a pool party over here.  Are ya comin' home for it?"

"Um…  Just a second."  She covered the receiver and asked Warren, "Hey, Hikaru's planning a pool party.  Can we have it here instead?"

"Sure," he agreed.  "We all need to relax."

She relayed this to Hikaru, who had an adverse reaction.  "I dunno if we can trust him, Tsunami!  I mean-"

"Don't worry, Hikaru.  Everything's all right, so just relax.  Believe me, everything's fine."

"Okay," her older sister replied reluctantly, "but if he does _anything_ wrong, he'll be so burnt that he'll have to be swept into the fireplace!"

"I'm sure… So, it's settled?"

Hikaru grudgingly agreed and said that she'd let the others know before hanging up.

Tsunami turned happily to everyone else.  "It's settled, then.  We're all having a pool party!"

"Why now?" Lee questioned.

"Hikaru probably just felt like everyone needed to relax!" she replied cheerfully.  "Why don't you go home and get your little sister?  It should be interesting!"

Ira stood up to go.  "I might be late.  There's something that I need to do first."  He had been meaning to do something for a few days, but instead he had conserved his power in case that his friends needed it more.

"I wonder what's so important…" Tsunami wondered aloud as she watched Ira leave.

********

Ira looked down with worry at his mother.  "She's been like this since this morning?"

"Yes," the nurse replied softly.  "The doctors say that her leukemia has suddenly jumped into a more advanced stage.  She keeps on losing consciousness."

Worry filled his eyes as he looked at the pale form of his mother.  She seemed so thin and old after battling her disease for so long.

"I'll leave you alone with her for a few minutes.  We'll be right outside if you need anything," said his mother's nurse before leaving the room.  She carefully closed the door after her.

"Mom," Ira sighed sadly as he looked at her sleeping form. _I finally found something that can help you, and I almost waited too long.  I was holding it back in case anyone else needed it more badly, but now everything has been fixed, _he thought to himself.  He carefully held his right hand, palm open, over his parent.  "Great…Healing…Power!" he called on the special power that he had been granted.  Green light flowed from his hand and into his mother, and he could feel it burn away the sickness inside of her.  He had never been able to sense the disease before, but now he could almost see the blemish on his mother's spirit.  The green light healed all of that.

When the light faded and everything seemed normal again, he was left feeling drained but happy.  He knew in his heart that his mother would be fine, though the doctors would call her sudden recovery impossible or a miracle.  She was still asleep, as her body was recovering from it's sudden healing.

As quietly as he could, he exited the ward.  The nurse was still standing outside, though he now noticed that her clothing was that of a volunteer.

"Did she wake up, sir?"

He shook his head.  "No, but I'm certain that she will be fine."  He said it with such conviction that she found it impossible to doubt him.

********

If his house left any doubt that Warren was rich, his pool cleared away the reservations of the unbelievers.  It was the same size as the pools used in the Olympics and it was in a patio so large that it could also fit in a small eating area, a shower to rinse off in, one low diving board, one high diving board, a storage place for pool toys and equipment, _and_ a one-story-high waterslide.  The water was heated with the help of solar panels, and the huge windows were glass so that no insects could enter.

"Damn, this is huge!" Hikaru exclaimed as she entered.  She was wearing a large red T-shirt with a swimsuit underneath.  "I didn't think that he had this much money!"

"My mother said that as long as we lived in Florida, we might as well enjoy the stereotypical comforts in our own backyard," Warren said as he entered the area through a sliding glass door.  "But when she saw what Dad had paid for, she accused him of going overboard."

"No shit!"  Everyone else was already in the pool, except for Ira.  Derrick and Erick were there, and the priestesses were there with extra swimsuits that Hikaru had brought.  Aimee and Rei were hanging around the edge of it and playing with some floating toys.

Hikaru turned her attention back to Warren.  "But listen here, buster.  No matter what Tsunami says, I still don't trust you.  You try to do anything funny, and I'll make sure that you regret it."

"I'm never going to hurt Tsunami or anyone else," he replied quietly.  "I would rather die first."

Hikaru realized that Warren was more serious about Tsunami than she had thought.  "Okay, then let me put it this way: If you get too romantic with my sister, you're going to end up in the hospital in pieces.  Get it?"  She leveled her best 'overprotective older sibling' glare at him.

He smiled nervously.  "Ah… I think so…" She continued to glare.  "Yes, I understand."  Satisfied with that answer, Hikaru turned to survey the pool as Warren walked away.

With the exceptions of Aimee and Rei, everyone seemed nervous about socializing.  Kotori and Tsuzu were talking, but even they seemed on edge.

_I can't swim,_ she though as she stepped into the shallow end.  _I can't swim, and I'm at a pool party with some people who are supposed to be my enemies._  She sighed as she carefully sat down on the pool's edge.  _When did my life get so fuckin' messed up?_

A part of her wished that she had never found out that she was one of the Suzaku Seven.  Life had been much simpler before that, but she had always felt that something had been missing.  Being one of the seishi made her feel more complete, but she wondered if they would stay bonded as they were.  Were seishi chosen by an anime box set even meant to exist?  It didn't feel like a mistake to her, but she still was unsure.  She wondered what other twists of fate were in store for them. __

~**TBC**~

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant: ***reads reviews for Death's Angel*  Happy!  ^____^  I didn't get as many reviews for the 3rd chappy as the 2nd chappy, but still… ^___^  Nice people!  Nice reviews!  Nice!  Good comments from CLAMPraven, Draconsis, Evil Hunter, shadow priestess…  I must of scared my other readerss with the plot twist.  ^___^  Happy…  ^___^  *goes back to rereading reviews*

Rime: She's not going to be making sense today. *gives best angst muse glare at Chibigreen*

Nyo: No sense!  Chibigreen too happy! *gives cute Nyan-Nyan pose*

Crystal: *flaps wings and blows smoke*

Snow: *freezes the smoke in midair with her breath so that it lands on Rime*

Rime: *brushes of frozen smoke shards* I suppose that we should reply to her reviews for her.

Chibigreen: Try eating them. *goes back to looking at the computer screen, but prints out reviews first*

Rime: *grabs first review* Okay, this one's from **CLAMPraven**.  Yes, I am sorry to say that Chibigreen is a disgustingly honest person.  She even works as her own conscience, no matter how many times I try to convince her that she's wrong.  And she's happy that you review her stories.  Apparently, getting reviews from her one of her favorite authors makes her go very SD.

Nyo: Eat it, eat it!

Rime: *makes a disgusted face and takes a bite out of the review* *blinks* Actually, it tastes… very nice.  Like chicken…

Nyo: *grabs next review* Okay, this is from **Astral Mikos**.  Chibigreen likes to mess around with Nakago in fics.  She likes him as a good bad guy, but she think's he's scary.  That's why she put him as a little girl.  Little kids can be scary, too.  She messes around with Miboshi because she wouldn't be able to stand him otherwise.

Rime: You can talk in sentences?!

Nyo: Of course!  *delicately nibbles on review*  Very nice!  It tastes a bit like star fruit.

Crystal: *uses a claw to hook the next review*

Rime: How're you going to reply to it?

Crystal: _{Telepathically, ahou.  Anyway, this is from **Sansele**.  Don't worry; Chibigreen doesn't mind any comments about the sluggishness of her updates because they're true.}_

Chibigreen: HEY!

Crystal: _{Tsunami gets into unbelievable amounts of trouble 'cause she's the main character, and because Chibigreen is a Chiriko fan.  Chiriko's become her second favorite seishi, pushing his way past Tasuki to end up ranked just below Chichiri.  She has this weird urge to torture the character that she likes – all Rime's fault, I promise – so Chiriko/Tsunami end up in the worst situations.  And she was impressed at Chiriko's "good fashion sense."  He wore a green robe, you see.  And you're right about that Yuu Watase combination, except for maybe in Ashitare's case.  He certainly was not bishounen.}_  *takes the reviews and gulps it down*  _{Yum… I think it's like cheesecake.}_

Snow: *takes last review* _{This is from **Flying heart**.  She thought that she wasn't logged in, but she was.}_ ^__^  _{Chibigreen's glad that you liked her fic.}_  *neatly devours the review*  _{Hmm… Strawberries and cream…}_ ^__^

Chibigreen: Thanks for feeding my muses, everyone!  ^___^  Oh, wait, there's one more review, and it's from my friend, Red Wolf.  Thanks for finding the time to read my fic!  ^___^  It'll be nice to talk to you again.  ^___^  *divides review between muses* What's the flavor?

Muses: *all have a bright red face, excluding a satisfied-looking Crystal*  Jalapeno peppers!

Chibigreen: Yep, that's Red Wolf, all right!  Peace!

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail accessible through your review or in your review and I'll e-mail you when I update.


	14. Pink Bubbles

**Disclaimer:** I don't own FY.

~**What Needs to be Done: Pink Bubbles**~****

Aimee happily tossed the ball back and forth with Rei.  She hadn't ever had a real friend.  She didn't think that the tall blonde man that no one else could see could be counted as 'real,' especially because he never seemed to be able to touch things.

She didn't know the words to describe her feelings, but she knew that Rei somehow didn't act as 'grown up' as she did.  But Rei was a very happy, cheerful person.  Even if she seemed a bit childish, Aimee enjoyed being around her.

Rei was starting feel that tossing the bright pink ball back and forth was boring.  It was a nice ball, but it wasn't _too_ interesting.  "I'm bored," she announced to Aimee as she tossed the ball.

Her new friend caught the ball and regarded her curiously.  "What do you want to do?"

She thought seriously about that question.  "I like playing dress-up or exploring.  What do you like to do?"

Aimee didn't know any games, besides the ones that they let her play at school.  "Um, what you said sounds fun."  Her eyes lit up.  "There's a lot of rooms in Warren's house.  I've only been in a few of them, but the house is _big_!"

"Really?"  Aimee nodded.  "Then let's go!" Rei said happily.  "Since I'm not leaving the house, my big brother won't be mad at me."

The two friends walked off to begin their new game.  They walked across the living room and up the stairs, where a missed step tripped Rei.  Aimee caught her so that she didn't fall.  She accidentally dropped the ball, but she decided not to pick it up.

The pink ball bounced slowly to the bottom of the stairs, where a blonde man in blue armor caught it.  "Nyan-Nyan," he said monotonously, "what are you doing here?"

The ball made a popping sound, and suddenly it was a green-haired girl in a pink dress sitting on the bottom of the stairs.  No one noticed either her or the blonde man.  "Nakago," the Nyan-Nyan said with a giggle, "I didn't expect to see you here!  Getting attached to your reincarnate?"

"I don't see why, but I am.  Tell me this: if I am reincarnated, why am I not in the body?"

She made a peace sign.  "Simple, simple!  You will eventually become part of her when she grows up, but right now she's too young for your personality to merge completely with hers.  The part of you that isn't merged with hers appears as a separate spirit, even if the soul is one."

"Hmm."  His face showed no expression, but his eyes turned to watch the 'pool party' that the Suzaku and Seishi were having together.  "I realize now that I was wrong to have the ambition that I did.  The world is cruel and uncaring towards humans, but it would be unjust to get revenge on the whole race."

"And?"

"The way I fought against the Suzaku seishi was…wrong.  It created strife between Seiryuu and Suzaku that still has not been solved.  Both wish to forgive their brother, but they cannot because their humans do not wish for it."

"They sent their celestial warriors here, to this world, because it gave them a chance to fix everything," Nyan-Nyan said neutrally.  "When they die in this world, they will go on to be reborn in the priestesses' world.  Kotori is Miaka's preincarnation, but at the same time, she has not been born in Miaka's world.  Her soul will be enriched by this life, and so it will be more prepared to summon Suzaku in the next… or, the one after the next, for Kotori's next life will be in this world."

"Such a feat must be possible only for a god.  It is the same for Yui-sama, correct?" Nakago asked dryly.

Nyan-Nyan smiled.  "Right!  And the gods are merely warping the space-time continuum slightly to get their wishes fulfilled."

Nakago raised an eyebrow regally, but he did not comment.  Instead, he said, "I will go and keep watch over…myself…now."  He walked past the Nyan-Nyan and up the stairs.  "You should do whatever you were sent to do."

The magical being called Nyan-Nyan smiled and chose a seat in the living room.  _I think that I will let the new warriors have their fun first._  Taiitsukun had sent her with an important message, but it was not too urgent.  She was supposed to wait for all of the seishi to gather, and Tomo and Soi were still missing.

A large wave of water smacked into Hikaru.  "Derrick!" she yelled, pissed, "What the hell do ya think yer doin'?"

 Derrick smiled innocuously as he floated on his back in the water.  "I was just seeing if I _really_ had telekinesis.  You just happened to be there."

"Damned Suboshi powers," Hikaru complained unhappily.  "I didn't want to get wet."

"Why not, Hikaru?" asked Erick curiously.

She turned red.  "No reason at all!  I just…didn't want to, that's all.  Ahahaha…." She scratched the back of her head sheepishly.

"I know why," Tahir said smugly as he looked away from a water gun fight he was having against Lee, Rayna, and the priestesses.  "You don't know how to swim, do you?"

"She doesn't know how to swim?"  Lee had an evil gleam is his eyes.

"No, she doesn't," Tsunami said firmly, "so don't try to do anything stupid like throw her in the pool."

"Alright," he agreed reluctantly.  He yelped in surprise when a blast of water from Kotori's water gun hit him in the back.

From inside, the Nyan-Nyan commented, "The Suzaku no Miko is certainly getting used to this way of life."  She sensed something at the front door and smiled.  "Fate is working hard today!" she said as she turned back into a pink bubble and floated up the stairs.

The doorbell rang, and Warren went to answer it.  "Hello?" he said as he opened the door.

It was Cleo, a girl from his drama class at school, and a boy.  "Warren?  You live _here_?" asked Cleo distastefully.  "I didn't know that you were _this_ rich."

"What do you want, Cleo?" he said impatiently.  He didn't get along very well with her.

"I was just driving along this road, and suddenly my car broke down!" she said dramatically.

The little boy spoke up, "She means that she tried to fry-" Cleo clapped a hand over his mouth.

"This is my little cousin, Ryan.  Also known as the brat," she explained.  "What he _meant_ to say was that he was annoying me so much, I couldn't keep my concentration on driving anymore!  I almost ran into a tree, and suddenly the car blew."

"Because she fried it," added Ryan.  "She was trying to fry me for making her hallucinate."  A sense of familiarity suddenly stuck Warren.

_[Let me handle this,]_ Miboshi suggested.  With a mental nod, he receded into his mind and let Miboshi come forth.

"Hello, Soi, Tomo," he said to them.  "This is an unexpected visit."

Ryan – Tomo – understood first.  "Gah!  He's Miboshi!"

"That's right."  He nodded.  "Why don't you come in so that we discuss this?  The Suzaku warriors and most of the Seiryuu warriors are already here."  Warily, they entered the house.

From upstairs came a giggle that no one else heard.  The Nyan-Nyan was amused by the convenient twists of fate. _Seiryuu and Suzaku are trying_ really _hard to apologize indirectly,_ she thought to herself.  Her bubble-body floated up another flight of steps, unseen by all, as the arrival of the two Seiryuu warriors caused a commotion downstairs.

Soon, Ira also arrived, and then all became involved in a serious discussion about the future.  Warren discreetly made a call to Peter as Hikaru's temper flared at a snide comment from Ryan, but Vidal soothed her with a few words.  The ties that bound them all together were so obvious to Nyan-Nyan's eyes that she knew they had been there since the rebirth of the seishi and mikos.  All that Suzaku and Seiryuu's power had done was strengthen the links.

She continued to float up the stairs until she found the room that Aimee and Rei were in.  The little girls had somehow found a closet of old Halloween costumes, and now Rei was dressed up as a frog.  Aimee had found a prince costume, and the two were making up a game as they went along.  Her appearance disturbed Rei, though by all rights the girl should not have been able to see her.

"The pink bally is floating in the air!" Rei said as she stared at the Nyan-Nyan bubble.

Aimee shook her head.  "I don't see anything," she said.  She only saw Nakago and Rei in the room, not Nyan-Nyan.

"It's there!" Rei insisted as she pointed towards Nyan-Nyan.

The Nyan-Nyan thought this revelation over.  If Rei _could_ see her, then either she was a very sensitive child, or a very innocent one.  She popped back into her human-like body that even Aimee could see.  "Hello, hello!" she greeted them cheerfully.  "It's nice to meet you.  My name's Nyan-Nyan!"

"Nyan-Nyan's a long name," said Rei wisely in the fashion of a five-year-old.  "Do you have a nickname?"

"A nickname?"  No one had asked her that before.  "Nooo…" All Nyan-Nyan's were part of each other, so all Nyan-Nyan's were called Nyan-Nyan.

"Nyo?  Okay, that's what I'll call you."

She sweatdropped.  This child certainly was different.  "Okay… Then my name's Nyo."  It felt strange for her to take a separate identity from her fellow Nyan-Nyan's.  She was hit with a feeling of distance from her sisters that made her feel almost sad.  She had never felt sad before, and she didn't like the feeling.

"What are you here for?" asked Aimee quietly.  She was in one of her serious, un-childlike moods.

"Ah, nothing.  I just need to talk to Warren and the others.  Everyone's gotten out of the pool now and are talking downstairs.  Why don't you go, too?"

"I'll go with you!" Rei said energetically.  "Aimee, are you coming?"

She looked at Nakago, who nodded.  "Okay, I'll go," she agreed and took off the cape and crown that was her costume.  "Aren't you going to leave your frog suit here?"

Rei looked down at her frog cape.  It was the hood of it that looked like a frog's head.  "I like this…"

"I'm sure Warren will let you keep it," Aimee sighed at her friend's childishness.  "Let's go."

Happily, Rei bounded down the stairs in front of her friends.  Nyo hung back and turned back into her bubble form.  _That isn't a dramatic enough entrance._  As the humans took the stairs, she floated through the ceiling until she came into the center of the living room.

She noted that everyone was there as Aimee came downstairs to complete it.  The Suzaku seishi, the Seiryuu seishi, and the mikos had gathered in another lifetime, and again had to summon the gods for peace on earth.  But this time, the peace of heaven was also at stake.

"Hello, Aimee.  Where have you been?" Warren asked.

"Playing upstairs with Rei," she replied.  "There was also this strange pink bubble thing."

"Pink bubbles?" Ryan sniggered in his nine-year-old superiority over five-year-olds.  "Only a _girl_ would make up a pink bubble friend."

Nyo thought that smacking him would feel nice right now, but she instead decided for a different approach.  She made her bubble-body visible and solid and landed on his head before bouncing onto the center table of the living room.  She popped back into her regular self with a peace sign.  "Nyan!" she said cheerfully.

The seishi, who were sitting in a large circle around her, all looked shocked.  "It's…a Nyan-Nyan," said Erick with disbelief.

"That's right!"  Nyo held her hands palm up in front of her and summoned the both copies of the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho to her.  The Seiryuu copy appeared on her right hand a second before the Suzaku copy appeared on her left hand.  "I was sent here by Taiitsukun with some information for you."

"Why would Taiitsukun send a messenger to us?" inquired Rayna.  "Isn't she busy running the Universe of the Four Gods?"

"Dummy!  This has to do with the Universe of the Four Gods."

She had their attention now, and she took a deep breath before continuing.

"All of you need to travel into the Universe and journey to Taiitsukun's mountain immediately.  You have five hours to prepare."

It was obviously not a request.

~**TBC**~

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant: **Eesh, I still haven't really finished _any_ of my stories (with the exception of the 3 chapter Death's Angel), and already new ideas are popping in my head!  Crazy ideas, too… I mean, what muse of mine actually wants me to write a Digimon/Fushigi Yuugi crossover?

Rime: The very idea sickens me.

Crystal: _{I'd like a Digimon/Suikoden crossover more…}_

Nyo and Snow: *whistle innocently*

Chibigreen: Anyway, my brains going crazy because it has all these new ideas, and I can't get them out.  I've noticed that I seem to like writing crossovers, so that's what I'll be sticking to for the most part (once I finish this story).  Anyway, now it's time for me to 'Review my Reviewers'.  My muses will be helping out again, but they won't be eating the reviews this time. *sweatdrops* Which muse actually wanted to eat reviews?

Crystal: *looks innocent*

Rime: I thought so.  Hmm… **Eria** wrote this one.  Chibigreen's glad that you liked the plot twist with Miboshi/Warren.  Thank you for reviewing…yeah. (Chibig, am I getting paid for this…?)

Chibigreen: No.  Crystal, why don't you take the next one?

Crystal: _{Sure!  You see, this one's from **CLAMPraven**, and she says that she likes me!  Obviously she has good taste, even if she thinks Rime is okay, too.  Very good author, this one, especially with that reptile-friendly character, Irasa, but now I'm beginning to rant like that pink monk.  I'd also have to comment that while Chibigreen did think of the Chiriko/Miboshi pairing before reading a fic with it, it_ was_ slightly mentioned in Skipsida's What if…?  It never became a true pairing, though.}_

Chibigreen: My muses insult me and praise me in the same sentence…

Snow: _{Don't worry, Chibigreen!  We really do support you.  After all, we came up with that nice tidbit about Hikaru's fear of water in this chapter.  **LanaPanther** asked what would happen in her nice review, and I think we answered her question well enough.}_

Nyo: I agree!  But now for **Flying heart**'s review.  No, Chibigreen doesn't know Grace.  Grace just requested via e-mail to be notified of updates.  ^-^  And I'm glad that you liked the Miboshi/Chiriko scene.  I oversaw it personally.

Chibigreen: And now we have… three separate reviews from **PrincessKitty-Chan**.  Shoot, I'm out of muses!  Tsunami, you take this.  *tosses review to character*

Tsunami: Hai!  Okay, in her first two reviews, she's very hyper… Is that PrincessMeow-Chan popping up?  In the third review… PrincessKitty-Chan, thank you for convincing Chibigreen not to give up on this story. All of us characters protested it… except for Warren and Vidal, but I heard them muttering something about 'character abuse.

Chibigreen: Well, that's it!  ^___^ This story is certainly turning out longer than I thought it would.  Thank you for reviewing!

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail accessible in or through your review and I'll e-mail you when I update.


	15. Separation

**Disclaimer:** I don't own FY.

~**Goodbye and Good Luck: Separation**~****

Sighing, Tsunami packed the last of the things she thought she would definitely need on the trip into the Universe of the Four Gods.  Her backpack was still light enough for her to carry without trouble, but it did contain some necessities, including a first aid kit, bottles of water, and energy bars.  She tested its weight and was satisfied with the result.  _I've carried worse for school._

On the other hand, her sister was not happy with the situation.  "_Why_ are we listening to a Nyan-Nyan?" she yelled at Tsunami as she stuffed a set of clothing into the suitcase.  "It just shows up and _demands_ that we get ready to go into _another world_ in five freaking hours!  I don't really give a damn!"

Kotori peeked in from the hallway.  "I do, Hikaru.  I miss my mother and my brother…" she trailed off.  Her eyes were wide and moist.

"Just make me feel _worse_ about this," Hikaru said sarcastically.  "I know, I know.  That's why I'm agreeing to this."  She took another look at the priestess and rolled her eyes.  "Kotori, _don't_ try to imitate Tsunami's puppy-dog face.  It really doesn't look right on you." Kotori's face broke into a grin and she gave an energetic nod.  As happy as she usually was, she bounced off, probably to raid the kitchen.  _Some things just don't change from one life to the next,_ Hikaru thought gruffly as she continued to pack.

She put her tessen in last, and then zipped up the backpack.  "Not to bad," she said to herself as she put it on, "but I feel like I'm forgetting something…" She trailed off when she saw her calendar and noticed that the next day was circled in red.  "Shit!  It's Cody's birthday tomorrow!  Shit, shit, shit, shit!  I said I'd hang out with him today because I can't tomorrow!"

"Then go hang out with him!" Tsunami called from her room.  "If you ever need a best friend to relax around, I'd say that today was it."

"Yeah, but-" she tried to protest.

"But what?"

"What if something happens and-"

"Relax, Hikaru!  Go have fun," the younger sister ordered.  "Who knows how long it will be before we're back?"

"I guess I could…" she wavered.  Her mind made up, she grinned.  "Yeah, why not?  I'll be back in an hour."  Hikaru dropped her backpack and walked out.  Soon, Tsunami and Kotori heard the sound of a car starting and driving away.

Tsunami picked up a family photo on her dresser.  "She tries to act laid back, but she worries too much," she told Kotori as she examined the picture.  "She's been like that for as long as I can remember."

Kotori looked at Tsunami with curiosity in her eyes.  "She doesn't look like the rest of your family," she noted, "but neither does Kara."

With a sigh, Tsunami sat down on the bed.  "I know.  Kara and Hikaru were both adopted just a few years apart.  You see, my mom had a problem with getting pregnant, so my parents decided to adopt.  They both found out they were adopted last year.  Hikaru took it in stride and still regards us as her real family, but Kara… She never acted the same around the family again."

"If you're mother couldn't get pregnant, how were you born?"

Tsunami shrugged.  "Don't ask me to go into the science of it.  Maybe they finally got lucky.  All I know is that I came along – unexpectedly – just a few months after Hikaru was adopted."  Her eyes rested on the picture where her family stood together happily.  "Our family was better when Kara was still a part of it."

The priestess put a comforting hand on Tsunami's shoulder.  "I'm sure that your family will be just as happy again some day."

She nodded, but her eyes were still sad.  "If only I had known this a couple of weeks ago, I'm sure that everything would be better now."

A glimmer of an idea lit Kotori's eyes, but she didn't say anything else.

********

Cleo dispassionately observed the tow truck lift up her blackened vehicle.  Warren and Ryan were standing by her side.  "I suppose that I should thank you for this," she said dryly, "but I won't."

"It's your choice," Warren replied neutrally.  "I just thought you might appreciate having your car fixed."  He had paid for the tow truck to come and take the crisped car to a mechanic's shop.  "We're going to have to go in a few hours anyway."

"And that," she replied belligerently, "is the problem!  I don't want problems from another life that _I can hardly remember_ in this life!"

His eyes darkened.  "You may barely remember, Soi, but I remember it all – clearly."  His voice held a chill tone to it that made her feel cold.  "Life has been kind to you in this life."

Tomo's reincarnation was unusually observant.  "You really _are_ Miboshi, aren't you?" Ryan asked.

Miboshi nodded.  "Yes, I am.  Warren and I share this body because our minds were too different to merge."

"But Aimee-"

"Is certainly not Nakago, the person," interjected Cleo.  "I just know that she's not like him."  A solemn nod was Miboshi's reply.  "Do you think that she'll ever be like Nakago?"

Miboshi smirked.  "Since you're as straight as they come, I doubt that it matters to _you_.  But, one day… She might be like Nakago _could have been_, without any of the cruelty that resulted from his treatment by Kutou."

A moment of thoughtful silence pervaded them.  _That little girl's_ way _more annoying than Nakago ever was,_ he told himself.  He had a great deal of memories from his past life.  _Too bad – I always felt close to Nakago…_

Their introspection was broken by the bumper of Cleo's car falling off as the tow truck began to pull away.  "I, uh, guess I overdid the lightening," Cleo said with a nervous giggle.

Warren and Ryan rolled their eyes.  Both of them thought, _She always overdid _everything_._

********

"Peter?  Where are you going?" came the voice of his mother.  Ashitare's reincarnation froze at the doorway.

"Um, I have to help some friends out, Mother," he said uneasily.

"But, Peter, I was going to make your favorite dessert!"

"I'll try to be back by dinner," he promised as he hurriedly shut the door.  His mother scared him much more than his nightmares of Ashitare did.  _Mothers will be mothers, and monsters will be monsters, but I don't know which is worse!_  He made his way to his car with his backpack in hand.  He had been told that it'd be a good idea to pack for a few days.  _I don't really want to upset my mother, but I need to help out those people._

********

_I never wanted my life to be this interesting_, Vidal thought as he prepared to leave his condo.  _I was happy living with my best friend and Kara… but then it all changed.  Drastically._  He remembered how he had been about to commit suicide that time when Tahir had stopped him.  _It's still so strange, you know?  I'm not even sure of my own feelings anymore._

"Vidal!  Wait!" he heard Kara call from inside.  Unsure of what to do, he hesitated as she came towards him.  "Vidal, I just want to say that I'm really, really sorry for betraying your trust like that.  I know I hurt you… but somehow it feels more right to be with Henry than to be with you."

"I guess you're right, you know," he said as he looked down at his feet.  He didn't meet her eyes.  "Is that all you wanted to say?"

She shook her head and gave an annoyed sigh.  "Look, Vidal, I know you can be thickheaded about emotions sometimes-" _Huh?_ He thought.  "-but I wanted to say that if you don't realize that you and Hikaru are getting along _pretty_ well, you're more dense than I thought."

He was speechless. "W-W-What?!  Me and Hikaru – don't be ridiculous!  She's, um, too young for me!'

"Just keep on telling yourself that, and you might actually believe it.  Good luck – both for your relationship, and your trip," Kara said with a smile before she closed the door on him.

He shook his head at the strangeness of it all.  _I don't feel that way for Hikaru at all… do I?_  The train of thought disturbed him.

********

"So, what's the problem, Hikaru?" her best friend, Cody, asked as they sat down on the couch.  "You look worried."

She sipped at the soda he had given her.  "Ya see, I can't hang out long with ya today.  I know that I said I could, but somethin' has come up."

He looked thoughtful.  "Like what?  You can tell me, right?"

She grinned and gave him a playful punch in the shoulder.  "Sure, though you wouldn't believe me!  It has to do with Fushigi Yuugi."

He blinked.  "You can't hang out with me because of an _anime_?"  Something was wrong with that.

"No, no!  It's not the anime.  It's that I'm…well…" She pulled up her sleeve on her left arm.  Her symbol was dimly glowing.  "I'm Tasuki, and I have to go into the Universe of the Four Gods to summon Suzaku."

He fell out of his seat with a crash.  He looked bewildered as he sat on the floor.  "You're… you're… damn!"

"No shit," she said, understanding what he meant completely.  "It's fuckin' weird, but I've known for the past couple of weeks."

"Does Tsunami… your family…"

With a smile, she said, "My parents are out on a cruise with Tsunami's boyfriend's parents, remember?  And Tsunami's Chiriko."

He gaped.  "She…is…he…I mean…This is crazy!"

She agreed with a nod.  "That's right.  And Tsunami's boyfriend is Miboshi, and there are a lot of other people I've met up with that are seishi.  The warriors an' the priestesses have gathered, Suzaku and Seiryuu."

They talked for a while longer.  Being around Cody did help Hikaru to relax, just like Tsunami had thought it would.  When Hikaru left an hour later, Cody cleaned up the living room, pausing only to look in the mirror.

"Hey, Cody," he said to himself, "do you know what you forgot to say?  You were going to say, 'Knock, knock.  Who's there?  It's Cody!  Cody who?  It's Cody, here to ask Hikaru out on a date.'  Cody, you're an idiot.  Hikaru's your best friend, and you wouldn't make a good boyfriend for her, would you?  She sounds like she really likes that Vidal guy.  No, Cody, I definitely did the right thing by not asking her out."  He sat down with a sigh.  When he drifted off to sleep, his dreams were filled with images of bandits in the mountains.

********

Tahir was the first to arrive at Warren's house.  Aimee was sitting by herself in the living room and quietly holding the pink ball that was Nyo.  "Hello," she greeted him quietly.  "Warren's driving Cleo and Ryan home so that they can pack, so I'm the only one here.  Tsuzu is here, too, but she's upstairs."

He nodded and sat down.  For a few moments, there was silence, but then Aimee spoke again.

"I've seen you before.  It was on the beach.  I was hiding under the big steps that cross the sandy hills because my dad had met up with his bad friends.  That's when I saw Kotori appear, but I didn't do anything to help her."  She stared down at the ball in her hands.  "I was afraid of my dad.  He and his friends chased her, and they might've done something…bad to her, but then you and your friends showed up.  I was glad that you stopped them."

"Your dad…?" _The poor kid, to have a father like that,_ he thought.

She nodded.  Her eyes again looked years older than she was.  "I ran home while he was still knocked out.  When he got home, he was really mad because he was stopped, so he drank a lot.  Then, he started to beat me.  My mom didn't do anything; she hates me, so she never does anything.  But…I was getting really mad at my dad for hitting me.  Some type of power came out of me, and the next thing I knew, Miboshi had me, and I wasn't in the house anymore."  She sounded perplexed as she said, "I'm not sure what happened, but Miboshi- he wasn't always a nice person.  I don't want to know."  She wasn't crying, but she did look upset.

He felt sorry for the young girl.  "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"I was watching when my dad beat up you and your brother.  I thought it'd be good if you knew that he's probably been punished for everything he did that was bad."

Tahir thought of what he had heard of Miboshi before he had…changed.  "Yeah, kid, you're probably right.  It does make me feel better…a bit.  Revenge can be a bad thing, too."

"I know," she said softly.  For a moment, her eyes were as cold and emotionless as those of the man that only she could see.  "I know."

********

As soon as everyone had gathered, Nyo popped back into her usual form of a little girl.  "All right!  Everyone's here, and I have the books!"  She held up the two copies of the Four Gods Heaven Earth Book.  "Time to go!"

Pink light spread from her and radiated onto the Seiryuu and Suzaku.  The light that touched the Seiryuu turned blue and the light that touched the Suzaku turned red.  The light split between Tsunami and Warren, and they felt themselves being tugged away from each other.

"Remember: Meet at Taiitsukun's mountain!" was the last thing the Nyan-Nyan said before they all were pulled into their separate books.  The glow grew intense for a moment before finally dimming.  When the glow had gone, only the furniture was left in the room.  Even the books were gone.

~**TBC**~

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant: **This almost came out later than usual… Why?  Chibigreen has discovered Weiß Kreuz (Weiss Kreuz/Knight Hunters), which is the German title (means White Cross) for a very good anime!  Many bishounen, many possible yaoi pairings, many _written_ possible yaoi pairings.  Need to buy… Gah!  *continues to rant*

Rime: Silly Chibigreen.  Too bad that she hasn't watched all of Knight Hunters.  It has some _nice_ angst that I'd be happy to help her elaborate on… Heheheh.  While she's busy talking, I'll answer the reviews.

Rime: **ember-fang** – Thank you for adding this to your favorites list.  It's nice to know that some people do appreciate the story.

Rime: **CLAMPraven** – The Nyan-Nyan sighting really was not my idea.  Nyo decided to stick herself in, which is completely unfair to us other muses-

Crystal: _{For once, I agree with the albino angster.}_

Rime: -but there was nothing _I_ could do about it.  Soi and Tomo _are_ good characters.  They're such easy targets for angst… But that will get more apparent later in the story.

Rime: **LanaPanther** – Thank you for encouraging Chibigreen with your nice comments.  She'd appreciate it, really – if she could hear anything right now.

Chibigreen: *still ranting about Weiss Kreuz and its addictiveness*

Rime: **shareefa** – Chibigreen had planned for a while to give Kouji a part in this.  She played around with an idea of pairing up Hikaru with him, but she eventually decided against it… Thank Seiryuu.

Rime: Chibigreen's still out of it.  *evil grin*  While she's not looking, I'm going to mess around with her story ideas.  See you next chapter, which will be Seiryuu-centric!  Hmm… Weiss Kreuz and Fushigi Yuugi… this idea will plague Chibigreen for months! *types rapidly on the computer* BWAHAHAHA!

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail accessible in or through your review and I'll e-mail you when I update.


	16. Dragon's Strength

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Fushigi Yuugi.

**Foreword:** You're not getting confused with the characters, right?  In any case, here's the list of the Seiryuu and Suzaku, and their friends.  It's alphabetical, ya know?

Amiboshi: Derrick  -  Ashitare: Peter  -  Chichiri: Vidal  -  Chiriko: Tsunami  -  Hikou: Henry  -  Hotohori: Rayna  -  Kouji: Cody  -  Kouran: Kara  -  Miaka: Kotori  -  Miboshi: Warren  -  Mitsukake: Ira  -  Nakago: Aimee  -  Nuriko: Tahir  -  Soi: Cleo  -  Suboshi: Erick  -  Tamahome: Lee  -  Tasuki: Hikaru  -  Tetsuya: Tatsu  -  Tomo: Ryan  -  Yui: Tsuzu

~**Gloomy Travels: Dragon's Strength**~****

Tsuzu glanced around the room that they had been transported to by Seiryuu's power.  "It looks like I'm back home," she said with a reassuring smile as she turned to face the Seiryuu seishi.  The edges of her dress swirled just above the surface of the water that flowed artfully throughout Seiryuu's shrine.  Her dress was a fancy blue one in a style that was popular in Kutou; it was the same dress she had been wearing the day that she had been torn from her world and placed in another.

But something was different about the way she had spoken.  Erick looked at Tsuzu in surprise.  "You're speaking in Japanese… And so am I!  How can I understand a completely different language?"

"It must be what comes from serving a god," Derrick said slightly dryly with a grin.  The priestess nodded encouragingly.  "I bet that Tsuzu-san wasn't able to speak English before she got to our world, either."  She nodded again in agreement and watched Warren look around the room.  Or maybe it was Miboshi, and not Warren.

"It's not quite the same as I remember it," he said finally.  It had to be Miboshi speaking, then.

Cleo asked, "What do you mean, Warren?"  She hadn't been told that Warren actually _was_ Miboshi, or, more accurately, that Miboshi lived inside Warren.

He rolled his eyes.  "I'm Miboshi, not Warren," he said dryly.  "Warren is resting right now.  He said that I'd know how to deal with this world better than he does."  _And it's true_, he though silently to himself, _even if it's very, very different_.

"You mean that you're the _real_ Miboshi?" Ryan squeaked out, and then he gulped.  He, as Tomo, had had some pretty bad run-ins with Miboshi that he barely remembered, but the memories still weren't good.  Their personalities had clashed - badly.  He nervously edged away from Miboshi.

"Look," he said with a sigh of annoyance, "I'm not the crazy, psychotic Miboshi that you remember, okay?  I'm almost a completely different person."  He saw that Ryan and Cleo still looked disbelieving.  He couldn't blame them because he still wasn't sure that he was quite so different.  Warren heard that thought from his place in the back of his mind.

_{You are different from _that_ Miboshi!}_ he protested.  Warren knew that Miboshi felt that he was tainted because of how his mind had been twisted by Tenkou, and he thought that those feelings were useless.  Miboshi wouldn't listen to him and acted as if nothing had been said.

A sound behind them made them start.  The door to the shrine was slowly opening.

A man with brown hair and amber eyes was in the doorway.  He looked older than eighteen, perhaps nineteen.  "Tsuzu-chan!" he exclaimed.  "You're back!  You've finally returned!"  He rushed forward and swept Tsuzu up in a hug.  "I've missed you so much."

She chuckled and put her arms around him.  "I've missed you, too, Tatsu," she said sincerely.  "How long have I been gone?"

"Three months."

That startled her.  "T-three months!  My father must be furious!"

"He was furious," Tatsu said wryly, "after the first day."  Then he seemed to notice the other seven for the first time.  "Um… who are they?  And where exactly were you?"

That made Aimee giggle.  "It's like watching Warren-kun and Tsunami-chan."

Warren blushed.  "I do not-"

"Yes, you do."  To Tatsu, she said, "She's the priestess of Seiryuu.  We're the warriors of Seiryuu.  I'm Nakago."

Tatsu blinked and looked dubious.  "_You're_ Nakago?"  There were legends about Nakago of the Seiryuu Seishi in his world.  He was always a powerful, arrogant, cold, and supremely dangerous man.

"That's right!"  She giggled again.  "Or, you _could_ say that Nakago is my invisible friend.  My name's Aimee."  Unseen by anyone else, Nakago rolled his eyes.

"Riiiight…" His voice hinted that he either thought she was crazy or extremely strange.  "Tsuzu-chan," he said seriously, "if they _are_ the Shichiseishi and _you_ are the Seiryuu no Miko, we'd better go see your father.  Now."  The tone brooked no argument.

Tsuzu sighed, but she didn't argue.  She and Tatsu led them out of the shrine and towards the emperor of Kutou.

********

"This is nothing like the traditional legend!" protested the Emperor vehemently.  "My daughter is _certainly not_ from another world."

Warren nervously looked between Tsuzu and her father.  The Emperor did not like the thought of her being in any danger whatsoever, and he was opposing the idea of them traveling to Mount Taikyoku.  He knew that the chances were that his daughter _could_ die in the process of summoning the beast-god.  He said, "Heika-sama, the old legend does not apply to this summoning at all."

The Emperor looked at him sharply, "And you are?"  This was not the best time to irritate him.

"Miboshi.  Sir, I am from another world.  For some reason, the circumstances of this summoning are almost reversed to the original summoning of Seiryuu by Yui-sama.  Tsuzu-sama is definitely the priestess of Seiryuu as surely as I am Miboshi.  And we were told by a servant of Taiitsu-kun to go to Taikyoku-zan.  I believe that is what I have to do."

Tsuzu looked surprised at his small speech as the Emperor's eyes narrowed.  "Are you saying that you do not care if my child's life is in danger?"

Derrick spoke suddenly.  "Look, sir, I can understand why you're worrying about her, but we don't want anyone to die, either."

"No one should die this time around," Erick quietly agreed.

Peter nodded, too.  "The first priestess – Yui – might of not made it because her seishi weren't supporting her.  They were supporting another seishi, Nakago."

"I'm not going to let anyone get hurt!" Aimee protested.

Ryan rolled his eyes.  "We know that, brat."  Her eyes quivered and filled with tears.  "I mean-"

Cleo smacked the back of his head.  "You're making her cry.  Shut up."

"I was just trying to get the point across that we don't support her this time," he complained as he rubbed the stinging back of his head.

She smacked him lightly again.  "I know that we don't.  We were all gathered together because Tsuzu-san appeared, right?  I'll support her as much as I can, even if it's just to get back home."  Cleo glanced around her.  "Besides, I know most of these seishi from school.  I wouldn't want them to get hurt, either."

The Emperor looked contemplative.  The room was silent as he considered the options and announced his decision.  "Then I will allow this expedition to the home of Taiitsu-kun."  He met the eyes of each seishi and held the gaze of his daughter.  "I wish you luck."  Then he stood and clapped his hands together.  "Just promise me this: that the wishes will not be used for selfish reasons, but for the good of many."

"Hai, Heika-sama," the Seiryuu replied more or less together.

"Preparations will be made for you to leave in the morning."

*********

The only sound heard on the mountain path was the steady clop of hooves.  There were six horses because Aimee was riding with Warren and Cleo was sharing her horse with Ryan.  The latter young seishi was a peculiar color.  "I don't feel so good," he moaned.  Even after a few days of traveling – and being stared at for the strange, foreign attire of his friends and himself – he was constantly suffering from motion sickness on the horses.

"Miboshi said that we're not going through the main checkpoint for safety reasons.  It's probably being staked out by all of the bandits and rebel forces in that area.  The way that we're taking is slightly longer, but it's safer."

Cleo threw Warren a glare.  "Then _you_ take Ryan.  He's sounded like he was ready to throw up on me for the past week!"

He smiled good-humoredly.  "Sorry, but I already have a passenger.  I'm sure that you'll be fine, if he-" He stopped short as the town that they had been heading to came into view.  As they came over the ridge, Miboshi took over.

"It sure has changed over the last century or so," he said softly.  His eyes took in the town that had been his birthplace before he destroyed it.  "I see that they have rebuilt it."

Aimee looked up at him worriedly.  "Miboshi…?"

He shook his head to clear out the bad and good memories.  "Ah, it's nothing.  Just some ancient memories… This is where we'll be crossing into Konan.

"Okay…" A concerned frown was still on her face, but she didn't press the issue.  Miboshi's chi felt troubled.

A few villagers came out to meet them.  Their life forces also felt uneasy – not a good sign.  One, an older man with a worn and wearied face, said, "Y-you're not from a rebel group, are you?"

Miboshi shook his head.  "No, we're just travelers."  He looked up at the sky and noticed that the sun was beginning to set over the trees.  "We'll stay at the inn here tonight, if you have room."

"Just travelers?" the man said with relief.  "In that case, follow me.  I run the only inn in this town."

It promised to be a normal, boring night, until…

A scream carried through the village.  It was followed by shouts of, "We're under attack!" and more screams.  The seishi were woken up by that and the acrid smell of burning as the wind carried the smoke through the town.

Miboshi quickly took charge in the confusion.  "Ashitare – Peter – take Tsuzu and Aimee and any stragglers in the town.  Get them to the river, or across it, if you can.  Derrick, Erick, Cleo, and Ryan, go with them," he said as he hustled them out of the inn.  He began to run down the street away from them.  "I'm going to try to help the villagers.  Just stay away!"

"But-" Aimee tried to follow, but Peter stopped her.

"You heard him.  We need to get away.  He can take care of himself, so we just have to trust in him," he said.  She nodded after a moment, and then they began to run for the river.

A group of men with weapons with a motley assortment of clothing and weapons blocked their way.  They were bandits, possibly rebels, and their intent was to kill.  "This is what this village gets for not following our orders!" one man shouted as they attacked.

A fierce look grew on Peter's face as he placed himself in front of Tsuzu, Aimee, and Ryan.  "I won't let you harm anyone!" he growled.  A blue light surrounded him, and he somehow got _under_ the first man's attack and gave him a punch that sent him flying.  He crashed into two of his allies, and their jumbled weapons incapacitated the others.  Blood spilled on the ground.

Cleo watched with surprise as Peter began to fight.  It wasn't anything she had expected; he was usually so calm.  But his fierce attack had left Tsuzu and the two kids undefended.  A man began to rush towards them, but Ryan also began to glow blue.  The man stopped in his tracks, held in some strange illusion world.  Another man that attacked was blasted away, but not killed, by a ki blast from Aimee.

Two more men were quickly taken out of the fight by Cleo's lightening.  At her back, she could hear Erick using his flute to knock out anyone attacking from that direction.  Derrick was using his Ryuuseisui and telekinesis to pull townspeople out of the fighting.  The number of people to protect was growing.

Miboshi stood alone in front of the larger horde of bandits and rebels.  There was no one else to protect the town – _his_ town.

_'I promised myself never to use my powers for harm again, but I will protect the place that I once destroyed.  No matter what.'_  With that thought running through his mind like a mantra, he opened up his summoning powers, but he did not open them to the demon world.  Instead, he sent a plea with his magic to more neutral realms.  _'Help me save innocent lives!  Please!'_  A shining blue light answered his plea as a portal opened.

To his surprise, many tiny flying beings poured out of the portal.  They were all a deep blue and giggling until the noise was like the movement of a small stream.  He realized that they were all water fairies.  With them, they brought a powerful mist and rain.

The rain hung over the town and doused all of the fires, and whenever the mist touched a rebel, he fell unconscious.  The fairies herded it before them like a flock before streaming back into the portal.  "Arigatou!" he called out to them before they completely disappeared.  A louder wave of giggling was his answer as the portal swirled and disappeared.

When they were gone, he breathed a sigh of relief and jogged slowly back to his friends.  Troops of Kutou soldiers had arrived and were beginning to tie up and disarm the enemy fighters.

He reached his friends and stopped short.  Cleo was lying on the ground, and everyone else was crowded worriedly about her.  A red stain covered the front of her shirt.  A wave of horror hit him like a brick.  "What happened?!"  He barely noticed that all of the enemies around them were unconscious or dead.

"A fighter got in close to Tsuzu-san," Peter said sadly as he looked down at her.  "I don't know what got into me, but I wasn't paying attention to them.  Fighting was the only thing on my mind.  With the soldier so close, she couldn't use her lightening, so-"

"She blocked the attack with her body," Miboshi breathed in disbelief.  "She's barely alive."  She was definitely in a coma.

He knelt down by her to get a better look at the injury.  It was nasty gash near her stomach and still bleeding quickly.  "She won't survive that long if we can't stop the bleeding," he observed coldly.  Miboshi was holding back on his emotions of worry and doubt.  They wouldn't help anything.  "We'll get you to a healer immediately."

"Can I be of service?" said an old and tired voice.  He turned to see an old woman with a large roll of bandages.  When he nodded, she hobbled over to examine the wound.  Within minutes, the wound was tightly bandaged and some color was flowing back into Cleo's face.  "It'll hold for now," she said finally.  "You need to get her to a _real_ doctor and get it stitched up, but I'm the best that they've got in this town.  The next doctor is a week away from here."

Miboshi knew that Taiitsu-kun's mountain was no more that a week away, too.  He made his decision.  "We'll keep on going.  There's a couple of very good healers where we're going, and it's no more than a week away."

"Then good luck to you, young man.  Just don't endanger the life of your friend," the healer said before walking away.

He looked down worriedly at Cleo.  _[She'll make it,]_ he said to Warren.  _[She has to, ne?]_

_{I hope she can.  I know she can,}_ Warren replied.  He wasn't so sure himself, but Miboshi needed reassuring.

Tsuzu laid a comforting hand on Warren/Miboshi's shoulder.  "Don't worry.  She'll be fine," she said firmly.  "She was willing to protect me and the others with her life.  We'll get her to Taikyoku-zan alive."

He was startled by the strength and courage glowing quietly in her eyes.  "Of course we will, Tsuzu-sama," Miboshi said with a slight bow.  It seemed as if Tsuzu was a much better miko than he had believed.  The battle had brought out their strength, it seemed.  Smiling slightly, he stood up with much more confidence that everything would turn out right in the end.

~**TBC**~

_Approximate _Translations:

arigatou – thank you

-chan – an endearing title, used between girls or boyfriend and girlfriend.  Usually not used for guys.

hai – yes; shows understanding/agreement

Heika-sama – Emperor

ki/chi – life force (I use them interchangeably, but I usually use _ki_ for attacks and _chi_ for the sensing of emotions.)

ne – right?

-sama – a title showing respect, like Lord or Lady

-san – polite title, like Miss, Mister, etc.

Seiryuu no Miko – Priestess of Seiryuu

seishi – celestial warrior(s)

shichiseishi – seven celestial warriors

-zan – mount/mountain

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant: **Um… Sorry for the delayed update.  I had lots of homework and a _huge_ writers block.

Rime: No kidding.  But, you _did_ draw that nice picture of me.  It's not too bad, though you would've written quicker if you hadn't read so many other stories!

Chibigreen: But I _like_ fanfics.  And you shouldn't be complaining; at least I drew you fairly well.  Ahou.  *grumbles about pushy muses*

**shareefa** – I was more than happy to give Kouji a part.  The Tasuki/Chichiri part should begin next chapter… And I guess that Tasuki would be hot as a girl.  If not exactly 'hot', she's pretty cute in a tomboyish way… I guess. *shrugs*  Next chapter, I'll have the characters explain how they look different from their past selves.

**Kaneta** – I won't stop writing; don't worry.  (And thanks for putting me on your favorite authors list!!!)  ^___^

**Hotaru** – There won't be any Tomo/Nakago (not at their ages!).  If I do a Tomo/Nakago (as in Ryan/Aimee), it'd be another short story (maybe three chapters) and it'd be a kind of sequel to this that'd happen when Aimee is 18 and Ryan is 23.  *nods*  In fact, I'll probably write that, sooner or later.

**Evil Hunter** – The extra-long rant was interesting.  I suppose I'll be thinking of Miboshi as Kowaii Mi-Chan from now on (Scary Mi-Chan?  It fits him).  Um… interesting dance… ^___^;;

**CLAMPraven** – Rime wanted me to assure you that he's not losing his edge.  I'm going to assure you that he's nicer than he thinks he is.  He makes good angst, but in the meantime, he doesn't mind helping out with the romance (as long as he can throw _some_ angst in).

**Flying heart** – Reincarnation fics are pretty easy to get confused with.  (Me, I just read what I can and hope that I remember what plot was in which story.)

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail in your review.


	17. Phoenix's Love

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Fushigi Yuugi.  Don't sue.

**Foreword:** It seemed like people wanted to know what the reincarnated seishi looked like in this story.  I didn't feel like putting the outright detailed descriptions in the story itself, so it's on my web site (http://members.tripod.com/chibigreenmagic/fushigiyuugi/thenewwarriors/characters.htm).

"(regular)" – talking

_{(italics)}_ – reincarnate to past incarnate (mental)

_[(italics)]_ – past incarnate to reincarnate (mental)

_'(italics)'_ - thoughts

_*-(italics)-*_ - flashback

~**Strange Journey: Phoenix's Love**~****

Chiriko was so happy to see Suzaku's shrine again that the first thing he said was, "Wai!  It's so good to be back again!"  He earned some strange looks from Hikaru and the rest since they thought that Tsunami was saying that _she_ had been there before.

Lee coughed politely.  "How could you of been here before?"  Tsunami took over her body again and sweatdropped.

"Of course I've never been here!  It must have been déjà vu from my past life," she said quickly.  _{I hate lying to them…}_

_[Since we _are_ in my world now, why don't we just tell them?]_ he suggested.

She gave a mental shrug.  _{I would feel uncomfortable telling them that.  But…you're right.  I'll tell them.}_  She was shaken out of her conversation when she realized that Hikaru and Lee had begun to fight yet again.  Kotori looked distinctly uncomfortable, and she kept on glancing from the magnificent, golden statue of Suzaku to the fighting pair.

Vidal also saw the glance and swiftly used his shakujo to separate them.  He jangled the end, playful but threatening, between their faces.  "Behave.  We _are_ in the shrine to the god we're supposed to be serving."  They looked like sheepish children for a second before trading mischievous glances.  Suddenly, Vidal found himself pushed back to the ground minus his kasa, kesa, and shakujo.  "HEY…!"

Hikaru did a little victory dance as she donned the kasa.  "Look at me!  I'm Chichiri!"  She held up the shakujo triumphantly.

"I got the cloak!" Lee said triumphantly.  Both of them began to run as Vidal chased after them.  On one side of the room, Nyo, Rei, Tsunami, and Kotori watched their antics with amused interest.  On the other side were Rayna and Tahir.

Rayna sighed as she watched them circle.  "They're behaving like little kids…  I can almost see them in an anime, running around in chibi form."  Tahir gave her a questioning glance.  "You know, SD.  When they shrink."  He still looked puzzled.  "Ah, the anime deprived," she sighed again.

"The only anime that I've ever seen was a few scenes from Fushigi Yuugi that Tsunami and Hikaru showed me," he admitted.  "I've never really been into that, though I have known a few people that were."

"You should watch it.  There's lots of guys that are almost as good-looking as Hotohori was," she said with a grin.

He looked up at the statue of Suzaku with a distant look in his eyes.  "I thought I only liked guys," he said softly.  "I only seemed to be attracted to them, but…then I met Kotori…"  Rayna kept her face stoic, but inwardly she winced.  "I had a crush on her for a while, but now… I think-"

He trailed off when the large doors to the shrine opened.  People dressed in traditional Chinese garb stepped in.  One had brown hair and brown eyes, and he looked vaguely related to Kotori.  He seemed surprised to see them.  His face lit up when he saw Kotori.

"You're back!" he exclaimed.  "I knew it!  I knew that you would return!"  He ran forward to sweep her up in a bear hug.

She giggled, but there were tears of relief in her eyes.  "Onii-san, I am glad to be back."  Eventually, they pulled apart.  "I would have told you I was going," she said once she regained her composure, "but I did not know until I was pulled into another world.  Let me introduce you to the Suzaku's seishi!  Everyone, this is my onii-san, Kazuo!"

Kazuo looked surprised.  "Y… You…are…seishi…?"  His eyes widened, and he turned to look at Kotori.  "That means…you…are…the priestess…?"

"That's right!"

He groaned and put a hand to his forehead as if he had a growing headache.  "Dear Suzaku… Okaa-san is going to flip."  He looked at Kotori and the seishi seriously.  "We should go to talk to Otou-san first."

"Hai!"

********

It was less than a day later that they found themselves on the road and traveling towards Taikyoku-zan.  "Man, that guy sure got us out of the city in a hurry," complained Hikaru from atop her brown horse.  "He wasn't acting like a very good father."

Kotori smiled.  "He is a very good ruler!  It's hard for a ruler to act like a father at the same time.  He does as much as he can for his children, so I don't mind when he acts a little brusque."

"He's worried about his country," mused Chiriko through Tsunami.  "I can see why.  The air feels dry and the land looks parched.  Several shops in Konan that should have been open today were closed, and most of the shops that were open were not food stores."  He sweatdropped after he finished speaking.  _I hope they don't think I'm strange for knowing that much…_

His worries were relieved when Vidal spoke.  "I noticed that, too.  However, we have to remember that the biggest problems are the rebels and bandits near the border.  Thankfully, Taikyoku-zan is far enough away from that area that we shouldn't run into any trouble, ya know?"

Because Nyo was riding on the same horse as them, Tsunami and Chiriko were the only ones to hear her murmur, "It depends on your definition of trouble."  Tsunami glanced sharply behind her, but Nyo only smiled and winked.  "Don't worry.  It's just me.  I won't cause you any trouble."  But Tsunami still frowned; something told her that it wouldn't be quite such a smooth journey.

********

Nyo clapped her hands happily as they entered a dark and creepy forest some days later.  "Yay!  We're almost there," she said with a big smile before dismounting.  She ran out in front of the horses so that they all came to a halt.  She held her hand out, palm forward.  "Stop right there.  Before we get any closer, I'm supposed to test all of you."

From a hidden pocket in her dress, she dug out a small mirror and threw it up in the air.  It reflected a ray of sunlight in midair.  In that flash, all of the seishi and the miko suddenly vanished.  The mirror landed face-up on the ground and slowly began to grow.  The horses started slightly at the sudden lack of weight on their backs, but they held their places.

"What happened to my big brother?" Rei worriedly asked.  Her face was scrunched up and it looked like she was about to cry.

Nyo smiled reassuringly.  "Don't worry, Rei-chan.  They'll be fine…I think.  Taiitsu-kun just wanted me to test them a bit before they entered her mountain, just to make sure that they can handle summoning the beast-god.  Do you understand?"

Rei still looked very unhappy, but she nodded reluctantly.  Suddenly she said, "If you hurt my big brother, I'm not going to forgive you."  It was the first threatening thing she had ever said to anyone.  Her eyes were serious as she clumsily dismounted the horse and walked over to kneel at the edge of the mirror.  She peered into it until she could see the shadowed form of Lee in the black background.

Lee glanced around him.  The Nyan-Nyan had thrown the mirror, and then he had found himself in the darkness.   "Where am I?" he asked aloud.  "Kotori?  Anyone?"

"Lee?"  The voice sounded distant and muffled, but it was definitely Kotori's voice.  "Where are you?  Where are we?"

"I don't know.  Keep talking, and I'll try to find you from your voice, okay?"  She paused, and then kept up a one-sided conversation about the legend of Suzaku.  It sounded to him as if she was trying to reassure herself.

"…And so the Suzaku no Miko, Miaka-sama, was finally able to summon Suzaku and restore balance to the Heavens.  Seiryuu was sealed…"

He could hear her voice more clearly now.  He knew that he was getting closer.

"…Some say that he vowed revenge…and yet did not want to fight his own brother.  Taiitsu-kun…"

Briefly, Lee wondered if Taiitsu-kun was the one that had sent them here, wherever that was.  The Nyan-Nyan had mentioned something about a "test".

"…Disapproved of their argument as the tipped sides of the scale once again sent their countries into war…"

Kotori's voice was beginning to recede again.  Desperately, Lee ran towards it… and was knocked back by a clear wall that the darkness had hidden from him.  "What?!"

"Is something wrong?  Lee?" he could hear Kotori ask.  Then he heard her scream.

His symbol glowed on his forehead as he frowned grimly.  '_I don't care what type of wall is in this weird place!  I'm not letting Kotori get hurt!'_  And he punched straight through the wall.  Some shards of the glass-like substance cut into his fist and hand as the entire thing shattered.  He didn't notice.  He had followed his punch's momentum forward and was running towards Kotori's voice.  He saw the shadow-like thing attacking her.  His speed increased, and then he felled it with a single blow.  It turned into dark smoke and dispersed

"Kotori…?"  The girl seemed shaken, but otherwise unharmed.  She ran to him and buried her face in his shirt.  Awkwardly, he put his arms around her and let his presence comfort her.

Tsunami knew she was in trouble when she saw two people standing across from her.  If they were two everyday people on some beach in Florida she may have been wrong.  But she was right, of course, though her judgment might have been hastened by the fact that one person looked like a gothic version of herself and the other looked like a dark version of Chiriko.  Not to mention that they were in some type of dimly lighted black room.

Gothic-Tsunami was wearing all black in a tight-fitting style.  Dark-Chiriko was dressed in black where the normal Chiriko would have been dressed in green, and his increased height and more defined features suggested that Dark-Chiriko was around Tsunami's age.  Tsunami stood still.  She didn't know what to do, but she had a feeling that running would not help.

Gothic-Tsunami spoke up.  "If you didn't notice, we're your dark sides.  We're your doubts, your worries, your frustration, etceteras and so forth.  And we're here to fight you."

"I don't fight."  She looked down at the ground.

Dark-Chiriko spoke up.  "Why not?"  He stepped forward menacingly.

Chiriko commented, _[This could get ugly.]_

_{Thanks for the vote of confidence,}_ she replied sarcastically.  _{I think I know how to get rid of them.  It should be fairly simple.}_  She smiled.  "It's simple.  You are part of Chiriko and I.  Even if I did fight you I could never lose, but I would never completely win.  Human beings continually have to fight the darkness within them."

The two dark sides blinked in surprise, and suddenly vanished along with the dark room.  Tsunami found herself standing in a nice dining room.  She smiled.  "I didn't expect the answer to actually be that stereotypical, but whatever works…"  She looked around herself.  "This somehow reminds me of something…"

There was a small popping sound, and then there were many more people in the room.  Ira looked very tired, like he had just used his powers or had a fight, or possibly both.  Kotori and Lee were hastily disengaging themselves from a hug in embarrassment.  Rayna and Tahir were both blushing about…something.  The last thing she saw made her eyes widen in surprise.  She nearly burst out laughing because she knew it would happen sooner or later.  Hikaru and Vidal were kissing quite passionately, oblivious to anything else.

When they stopped for breath, they finally noticed everyone else in the room and turned a very bright shade of red.  "Er…um…" went Hikaru.

"Daa…" went Vidal.

Tsunami giggled.

And then everyone yelled out in surprise and fear when something very ugly appeared in the room.  "AAAAAAHHHHH!"

A vein in Taiitsu-kun's bulldog-like, old, wrinkled face twitched.  "Quiet down, you nitwits, unless you don't want my help."  Everyone froze.  No one made a sound.  "That's better.  Nyan-Nyan!"

Nyo popped into the room.  She had brought along Rei and Tama-neko.  The latter quickly ran over to Ira and sat on his shoulder, and the former ran to Lee and gave him a hug.  "You called?" the Nyan-Nyan said.

"Prepare the guest chambers.  The Suzaku will be staying on this part of the mountain until the Seiryuu arrive.  Your job is to watch them."  As suddenly as she had appeared, the mother of the four gods and the creator of their universe vanished.

With a smile, Nyo bowed to them all.  "Right!  I'll show you to your rooms!"  With a 'poof', she was in a tour guide's uniform.  "What happened in the test Taiitsu-kun told me to give you anyway?"  The seishi paused for a second, unsure of what to say.

*-Ira looked sadly at all the people around him.  They were all injured or dying, but he knew that his power could only help one of them.  One, a woman holding a dead baby, asked, "What will you do?  Who will you help?"

_He frowned.  "I can't save them all… I wish I could, but I can't…" A determined look came into his eyes.  "But I will help who I can!"  He advanced towards the wailing dying… and they vanished._-*

*-_Rayna and Tahir found themselves sitting in the middle of nowhere.  They tried walking off, but always found themselves back where they started.  After a moment's confusion, they decided to sit down and wait for something to happen.  The wait was beginning to bore them, and Rayna asked a question that had been plaguing her mind.  "Tahir… When we first came into the book, back at the shrine, you said that you had a crush on Kotori.  Then you were about to say something else, but you were interrupted._

_Tahir blushed.  "Yes.  You see…" he fidgeted slightly, "…I…I don't have a crush on her anymore.  I think…that I like you."  There.  He had said it.  It had been bothering him for a few days.  He met Rayna's eyes, and saw that, this time, his love was returned.  Their heads came closer together, and then Rayna kissed Tahir on the lips.  Then she simply leaned against him.  Both of them were blushing._-*

*-_Hikaru finished fighting off the last of the demon-like creatures with Vidal's help.  Together, they had easily defeated several in this dark place.  "Whew!  It's a relief that they're all gone!" Hikaru said with a smile as she sheathed her fan.  Her "Rekka Shinen" spell had taken out quite a few of the creatures._

_Something rushed at her out of the darkness.  It was another creature!  But before she could even react, Vidal was there, and he destroyed it with a ki blast.  The demon was so close that the explosion blew him back, and he landed _on_ Hikaru.  He got up, apologizing quickly, but Hikaru noted that he was blushing.  She wished that if he would just admit it if he liked her.  Finally she said, "Fuck this."  Vidal stopped his apology abruptly.  "Vidal, do you like me?" she asked._

_He hesitated to answer.  "Er…"  His blush grew, and finally he just nodded.  He was pretty surprised when he ended up holding Hikaru, and even more surprised when she kissed him.  Actually, he didn't mind at all._-*

 "Nothing happened," Kotori and the seishi replied to the Nyan-Nyan's question.

She looked at them with disbelief and didn't tell them that she had seen it all in the mirror.  _'I think Taiitsu-kun likes to play matchmaker…'  _"Right… Now, follow me!  I'll show you to your rooms!"  Now all they had to do was wait for the Seiryuu seishi to arrive.

~**TBC**~

~**Akugis:** Geiko Commercial Parody~

Chibigreen does not own Geiko.  She doesn't even use Geiko.  But she thinks the Geiko/Gecko commercials are very funny.  And she doesn't own Magic Knight Rayearth, either.

Tsunami vs. a Tsunami

Tsunami: I am Tsunami, not to be confused with _a_ tsunami, which can destroy hundreds of homes in a single instant.  In fact, tsunamis have been recorded to reach heights of-

Hikaru: Yeah, yeah, sure.  It's my turn now.

Tsunami: *pouts*

Hikaru (the reincarnated Tasuki) vs. Hikaru (from Magic Knight Rayearth)

Hikaru: I am Hikaru, the reincarnated Tasuki, not to be confused with Hikaru, the Magic Knight of Flame, who can instantly summon a fire god mecha and get two really good-looking bishies to fall for her.  Hey, wait a sec…!  I have two bishies that like me, too!  Who wrote this $@#%&! thing?!

Ryan vs. Tomo

Ryan: I am Ryan, not to be confused with Tomo, who can instantly scare hundreds of fans by wearing horribly clashing makeup… and then instantly win over hundreds of fans by removing said makeup from his face.  Why do they like _him_ anyway? *grumbles*

Warren vs. Miboshi

Warren: I am Warren, not to be confused with Miboshi, who can instantly cut decades off of your lifespan with one easy demon summoning.  Or, if you prefer, he can just possess you.

Miboshi: …That's just cruel, Warren…

Seiryuu vs. Suzaku

Seiryuu-seikun: I am Seiryuu, not to be confused with that idiotic red chicken, who can be instantly sealed up by me, leaving all of his precious seishi to die.  Hahaha!

Suzaku vs. Seiryuu

Suzaku-seikun: I am Suzaku, not to be confused with that immature blue lizard, who can instantly be betrayed by _his own priestess_ and get pulverized by me.  HahaHA!

_Approximate _Translations:

arigatou – thank you

chibi – child, in some cases referring to when anime characters are super-deformed (SD)

kasa – fishing hat

kesa – the cloak that Vidal/Chichiri wears

miko – priestess/maiden

okaa-san – mother/mom

onii-san – elder brother

otou-san – father/dad

seishi – celestial warrior(s)

shakujo – a staff such as Vidal/Chichiri's staff

-zan – Mount/Mountain

**Chibigreen's Ending Rant: **Oops…this chapter is out a bit late.  I had lots of school related stuff to do.  *nod*  Anyhow… Many more people reviewed this time than usual!  I was quite surprised, to tell the truth.  Maybe I should almost kill off characters more often-

_Rime_: I'll help!

_Chibigreen_: *clears throat* Ahem.  But I won't, because I just love all my characters!

_Rime_: *pretends to gag*

_Nyo: _Shut up!  *smacks Rime with a mallet*  Chibigreen, get working!  There's still more to do.  *starry eyes*  And all the reviews… Su-go-i!

_Chibigreen_: Okay… Well, now this fic is going to end in the foreseeable future… Hmm, two or three chapters and an epilogue, maybe?  And then the continuation fic with Tomo/Nakago… *begins to outline the plot*  Hmm…

**Fiery-Ice** – Wai!  Thanks for all the compliments!  ^___^  It's always nice to know that people like my fic.

**ember-fang** – I hope that the slight Lee/Kotori romance in this chapter was okay.

**Lanen** – I guess Miboshi _is_ getting normal…for a reincarnated mage/split personality.

**RyogazGal** – Kouji does do angst well, even if I feel sorry for making him feel angsty.  ^__^;;

**shareefa** – Thanks a bunch for adding me to your favorites list! ^___^ Don't worry; I'm going not going to stop writing this fic until it ends.

**PrincessKitty-Chan** – No, I do not have something against Soi.  *rolls eyes*  Or you.  I'm glad you still like the fic, even if you probably know more about what's going to happen next than anyone else.

**Kaneta** – Yep, the plot thickens!  Nice sound effects.  ^___^

**Flying heart** – Well, I put the descriptions of their looks up on my website.  I may eventually write the descriptions into my story.  I don't know. *shrugs*__

If you want to be notified when this story is updated, leave your e-mail in your review.


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